The U.S. claims that the second seized vessel belongs to a "ghost fleet."

The U.S. government stated that the Centuries, a Panamanian-flagged vessel intercepted on Saturday off the coast of Venezuela, belongs to Maduro's "ghost fleet."

“The tanker contained sanctioned PDVSA oil. It was a flag-of-convenience ship operating as part of the Venezuelan ghost fleet to smuggle stolen oil and finance Maduro's narco-terrorist regime,” said Anna Kelly, spokesperson for the White House, on X.

The official responded accordingly to the information disseminated by The New York Times, which stated that the Centuries was not among the ships sanctioned by the U.S. and belonged to an oil company based in China.

On Saturday, the U.S. government declassified images of the seizure of this second oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

"In an action before dawn this morning, December 20, the U.S. Coast Guard, with the support of the Department of Defense, intercepted a tanker that was last docked in Venezuela," said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on X.

"The United States will continue to target the illicit trade of authorized oil that is used to finance narco-terrorism in the region. We will find them and we will stop them," he added.

This Sunday, for its part, a third ship was seized in international waters near Venezuela, the oil tanker Bella-1, flying the Panamanian flag.

According to a government source confirmed to Bloomberg, the ship was heading to Venezuela.

The Bella-1, linked to the company Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, which in turn is associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, has been subject to sanctions since June 2024 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury.

Moreover, the first of the vessels seized last week, with a capacity exceeding 320,000 tons of crude oil, was transporting oil destined for Cuba and was part of an illegal network that was moving sanctioned crude from Venezuela and Iran.

The U.S. imposed energy sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, and buyers and refiners have turned to a "ghost fleet" or "shadow fleet" of tankers that mask their location, and this type of fleet is considered to be exposed to potential punitive measures from Washington.