U.S., Venezuela Collaborate to Restore Seized Oil Tanker Minerva
"Authorities in the United States and Venezuela announce the successful joint operation for the return to the country of the vessel Minerva, which had sailed without payment or authorization from the Venezuelan authorities," PDVSA stated.
The firm confirmed the vessel's current trajectory homeward. "Thanks to this first successful joint operation, the vessel is currently sailing back to Venezuelan waters for safekeeping and appropriate action," it added.
The announcement follows Friday's earlier disclosure by Washington that U.S. forces had apprehended a fifth tanker as part of expanded Venezuelan oil interdiction efforts.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reported Coast Guard personnel conducted boarding procedures and captured the Motor Tanker Olina—formerly designated Minerva M—in international waters positioned east of the Caribbean Sea.
Since September, the Trump administration has escalated naval deployments across the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean, officially justified as counter-narcotics measures.
These maritime seizures follow Washington's Jan. 3 military incursion into Venezuela, during which U.S. forces apprehended President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores. Trump subsequently declared his government would oversee Venezuelan operations and petroleum resources throughout a transitional phase.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell emphasized the Defense Department's Caribbean blockade maintains maximum operational status.
"In the past 24 hours alone, at least seven 'dark fleet' oil vessels have turned around to avoid interdiction—because they know we mean business," Parnell wrote on U.S. social media company X, vowing authorities will "hunt down and interdict all dark fleet vessels" transporting Venezuelan oil.
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