On December 21, 2025, the U.S. Coast Guard found itself in the thick of a high-stakes maritime pursuit off the coast of Venezuela, chasing down a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker named Bella 1. The operation, which played out over the course of a tense weekend, marked the third such action in a rapid escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign to squeeze Venezuela’s oil industry and, by extension, the regime of President Nicolás Maduro. According to Axios, the pursuit of Bella 1 is just the latest in a string of U.S. efforts to interdict oil tankers suspected of violating American sanctions—a strategy that has drawn both international attention and sharp condemnation from Caracas.
The Bella 1, at the time of the U.S. pursuit, wasn’t loaded with oil. It was en route to Venezuela, presumably to pick up a fresh cargo. The ship itself had already attracted the scrutiny of American authorities: the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Bella 1 in 2024, alleging it had transported oil that enriched both Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. As Bloomberg and The New York Times reported, the ship’s shadowy past and murky affiliations made it a prime target for U.S. interdiction efforts.
But the Bella 1 didn’t make it easy. When U.S. Coast Guard personnel approached the vessel late Saturday, it was not flying a valid national flag—a move that, under international law, rendered it stateless and liable to be boarded at sea. According to U.S. officials cited by The New York Times, American authorities had obtained a judicial seizure warrant, but the tanker refused to submit. Instead, it fled northeast into the Atlantic, broadcasting over 75 distress signals by Sunday evening as it put hundreds of miles between itself and the Caribbean. As one source told Axios, the ship was “flying under a false flag,” complicating the Coast Guard’s efforts and deepening the intrigue.
The chase for Bella 1 was not an isolated incident. Just a day earlier, on December 20, the Coast Guard had intercepted another tanker, the Centuries, in international waters off Venezuela. Unlike Bella 1, Centuries was actually loaded—carrying between 1.8 and 2 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, cargo valued at roughly $95 million according to experts. However, Centuries was not on the U.S. sanctions list, and American forces lacked a judicial warrant to seize it, raising questions about the legal rationale for the operation. Still, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took to social media to announce, “The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region. We will find you, and we will stop you.” She even posted a video showing U.S. forces rappelling from a helicopter onto the ship’s deck.
Earlier in December, on the 10th, the U.S. had boarded and seized a third tanker, Skipper, which was under sanctions for carrying Iranian oil. The Skipper, too, was flying a false flag and was eventually sailed under Coast Guard supervision to the port of Galveston, Texas. According to The New York Times, the oil on board Skipper had not yet been seized, pending a separate legal process. These actions, taken together, signaled a new phase in the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Venezuela—a campaign that now includes a “total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela,” as President Trump declared on December 16.
The U.S. crackdown isn’t just about Venezuela, though. As Axios noted, the operations have a secondary aim: targeting Iran. Iran and Venezuela are known to cooperate on oil shipments through what’s called a “ghost armada”—a shadow fleet of tankers that move crude oil in defiance of sanctions, often employing tactics like signal spoofing and false paperwork. Satellite imagery and ship-tracking data analyzed by The New York Times revealed that Bella 1 had previously picked up oil from Kharg Island, Iran’s main export terminal, before transferring its cargo off the coast of Oman and eventually heading toward the Caribbean. The web of connections between Venezuela, Iran, and even China (where much of the oil is ultimately sold) underscores the global dimensions of what might seem, at first glance, a regional dispute.
For the Trump administration, the stakes are clear. The president has repeatedly accused Nicolás Maduro of using oil revenues to finance “Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping”—allegations for which, as The New York Times pointed out, little public evidence has been provided. Trump’s team argues that cutting off Venezuela’s oil exports is a way to weaken Maduro’s grip on power, disrupt funding for alleged terrorist activities, and, perhaps, reassert American influence in the Western Hemisphere. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Reuters, “I don’t think that people need to be worried here in the U.S. that the prices are going to go up because of these seizures of these ships. There’s just a couple of them, and they were black market ships.” Still, oil traders have warned that the growing risk of conflict at sea could push prices higher, especially in Asian markets.
Venezuela, for its part, has responded with outrage. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez issued a fiery statement after the Centuries was boarded, saying the country “denounces and categorically rejects the theft and hijacking of another private vessel transporting Venezuelan oil, as well as the forced disappearance of its crew.” She promised that Venezuela would “take all appropriate actions, including reporting this to the United Nations Security Council, other multilateral organizations, and the governments of the world.” The Maduro government has long maintained that U.S. accusations of terrorism and drug trafficking are fabrications, and it characterizes the American pressure campaign as nothing more than a “neo-colonial” grab for Venezuela’s vast oil reserves—the largest proven reserves in the world.
Meanwhile, the situation at sea remains fluid and perilous. After the Skipper seizure, Maduro ordered Venezuelan Navy vessels to escort tankers leaving the country’s ports, raising the specter of an armed confrontation. Satellite images reviewed by The New York Times showed Centuries being escorted by what appeared to be Venezuelan Navy ships to the edge of the nation’s exclusive economic zone. Yet, as of Sunday evening, Bella 1 had not reached Venezuelan waters and was not accompanied by any military escort.
For now, the U.S. Coast Guard’s pursuit of Bella 1 continues, emblematic of a broader contest over oil, geopolitics, and the rule of law on the high seas. With each new interception, the risks—and the rhetoric—seem only to grow.
