President Trump’s race to secure the Western Hemisphere, in a foreign policy move called gunboat diplomacy, off the coast of Venezuela to dismantle and disrupt a dark-fleet tanker network, has now resulted in a sixth oil tanker being seized by U.S. forces in the Caribbean.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the dark-fleet tanker was seized in the U.S. Southern Command Area of Responsibility, covering Central and South America and the Caribbean.
News details are emerging.
Through #OpSouthernSpear, the Department of War is unwavering in its mission to crush illicit activity in the Western Hemisphere in partnership with @USCG through @DHSgov and @TheJusticeDept.
In another pre-dawn action, Marines and Sailors from Joint Task Force Southern Spear,… pic.twitter.com/brxO9xXUu3
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) January 15, 2026
“The cargo-empty US-sanctioned Aframax tanker VERONICA (9256860) was last seen in Venezuela on 2026-01-03 as she departed Amuay. She has directly exported Iranian oil 10 times, as well as received Iranian oil 5x via STS and Venezuelan 2x. This lady’s shady career began in 2020,” Tanker Trackers wrote on X.
The tanker crackdown targets the dark fleet that transports sanctioned Venezuelan oil to Asia, especially to China. That oil revenue once fueled the Maduro regime, which has been dismantled in recent weeks after Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. Delta Force operators and flown to New York to face federal charges in the Southern District of New York. He is currently being held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn while awaiting trial.
Shipping analytics provider Kpler says Trump’s gunboat diplomacy has significantly affected Venezuela’s oil exports. Just this month alone, crude loadings have plunged to about half of normal levels. The only tankers able to make port calls are one bound for the U.S. and those transporting oil to Venezuelan refineries.
“The dark-fleet model with Venezuela, for now, has been broken because there are no cargoes,” Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime-intelligence analyst at Windward, told WSJ.
Bockmann said, “Whether or not the dark fleet will be able to resume shipping to China, given that the U.S. is working with PdVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, to control what’s going in and out of the country, it is quite possible that dark fleet tonnage will no longer call there.”
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