The United States announced new sanctions against shipping companies and vessels it says help transport Venezuelan oil, putting further pressure on key pillars of President Nicolas Maduro’s government a day after it seized a tanker believed to be carrying millions of dollars worth of oil off the coast of Venezuela.
The sanctions list released Thursday by the U.S. Treasury Department also includes three nephews of President Maduro’s wife, Syria Flores, and another pro-Maduro businessman. Two of the sanctioned nephews had been convicted of drug trafficking in the United States before being released in a prisoner exchange.
The Treasury Department said the six vessels engaged in “deceptive and dangerous transportation practices” that provided financial resources to the Maduro regime. Four of the ships are Panamanian-flagged. The other two are the Cook Islands and Hong Kong flags.
The move further escalates the Trump administration’s months-long pressure campaign against Venezuela, which includes moving thousands of troops and an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean, attacks on suspected drug-smuggling ships and repeated threats against Maduro.
Armed U.S. military personnel on Wednesday seized an oil tanker in international waters off the coast of Venezuela suspected of being involved in an “illegal oil transportation network” supporting countries including Venezuela and Iran, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Venezuela is the largest known producer of oil on the planet, but international sanctions and a severe economic crisis have decimated the country’s oil industry.
But state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA remains the cash-strapped Maduro regime’s biggest source of income, thanks in part to a shadowy shipping network that smuggles Venezuelan oil into global supply chains.
Muyu Xu, senior oil analyst at trade intelligence firm Kupler, said the seizure of the tanker and recent sanctions against companies and vessels that allegedly helped transport Venezuelan oil could create uncertainty for these operations.
“What we have to watch over the next few days is whether there will be any delays in loading, whether they (Venezuela) will reduce the number of tankers going to the Caribbean,” he told CNN.
“To attract these ships, they (Venezuela) will probably have to pay higher freight rates to ship owners.”
Additional seizures are likely in the coming weeks as the United States ramps up pressure on President Maduro, a senior US official previously told CNN.
President Maduro has claimed that President Trump’s escalating campaign against him is primarily motivated by a desire to obtain Venezuelan oil.
President Maduro said the ship, known as the Skipper, was carrying about 2 million barrels of oil “to international markets” when it was seized, according to Reuters.
US crude oil prices are hovering around $58 per barrel.
The tanker was carrying about 1.8 million barrels of melee crude, and Kpler’s Xu told CNN that the value of the unloaded cargo was about $84 million.
Venezuela produces about 1 million barrels of crude oil per day, which is only about 0.8% of the world’s crude oil production. That’s less than half the production before Maduro took control of the country in 2013, and less than a third of the 3.5 million barrels the country pumped before the socialist government took power in 1999.
CNN has reached out to the Venezuelan government for comment on the latest sanctions.
The captured tanker was headed for Cuba with Venezuelan crude oil, but was captured by the U.S. military. Around that time, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate Maria Colina Machado defied a travel ban and fled the country, landing in Oslo.
The tanker, previously named Adisa, was sanctioned by the United States in 2022 for facilitating oil deals for Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force.
The skipper hid its true location while docked at an oil terminal in Venezuela last month, according to satellite and ship data reviewed by CNN. The country’s maritime authority said the tanker was flying the Guyanese flag even though it was not registered in Guyana.
None of the six ships sanctioned on Thursday were in the Caribbean as of early Friday (Eastern time), according to AIS vessel data reviewed by CNN.
As of early Friday morning ET, there were at least eight tankers under U.S. sanctions related to Iran or Russia’s war with Ukraine near Venezuelan ports or off the coast of Venezuela, according to AIS shipping data reviewed by CNN and cross-checked with U.S. Treasury Department data. This included three tankers that were located around the Port Jose oil terminal, the same terminal where the recently captured captain was spotted in satellite images last month.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said the ship’s captain will now head to a U.S. port and U.S. authorities will pick up the oil cargo.
Meanwhile, President Maduro said the seizure marked a “new era of naval piracy in the Caribbean” after his government filed a formal complaint with the International Maritime Organization.
Kpler’s Xu said Venezuela’s ability to export oil could be challenged if the U.S. frequently arrests crew members and detains cargo.
“That could be a real problem. Maybe at some point these ship owners will realize the risk is too high and no one wants to come.”
