A crude oil tanker named the Bella 1 and later the Marinera was seized by U.S. forces on Wednesday. The tanker is seen right here in a photograph taken aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro.
U.S. European Command
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U.S. European Command
After a two week chase, U.S. forces have seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker within the north Atlantic between Iceland and Britain.
The tanker was initially sure for Venezuela, however modified course to keep away from the U.S. ships, setting off the prolonged drama at sea.
The U.S. motion is a part of a navy strain marketing campaign that features boarding tankers which can be on a U.S. sanctions listing. The marketing campaign started a month in the past, however the U.S. seized Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse.
Wednesday’s motion reveals the marketing campaign is ongoing.
When the confrontation at sea started final month, the tanker was known as the Bella-1 and was on the U.S. sanctions listing, a part of the so-called “ghost fleet” of ships concerned within the transport of oil from nations comparable to Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
The Bella-1 refused to halt and reversed course, heading from the Caribbean and going throughout the Atlantic.
On the way in which it renamed itself the Marinera and re-flagged itself as a Russian ship. Transport analysts say it could have been headed to a Russian port within the Arctic when U.S. forces boarded it.
The U.S. navy’s European Command and the Division of Homeland Safety each introduced the seizure on social media.
U.S. European Command recognized the vessel because the Bella-1, a ship that has sparked weeks of hypothesis because the U.S. moved to grab it. Not too long ago, the Bella 1 was renamed the Marinera and commenced crusing beneath the Russian flag.
In a associated growth, a second tanker, the Sophia, was additionally intercepted in or close to the Caribbean Sea. U.S. Southern Command known as the ship “a stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker.”
Sophia “was operating in international waters and conducting illicit activities,” the navy stated, including that the U.S. Coast Guard is now escorting the ship to the U.S.
In a put up on X, Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem acknowledged, “In two predawn operations today, the Coast Guard conducted back-to-back meticulously coordinated boarding of two ‘ghost fleet’ tanker ships.”
The Bella-1 and the Sophia “were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it,” Noem stated.
This can be a growing story.
