The United States issued new sanctions targeting Venezuela on Thursday, imposing curbs on three nephews of President Nicolas Maduro's wife, as well as six crude oil tankers and shipping companies linked to them, as Washington ramps up pressure on Caracas.
The action comes amid a large-scale U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean and as U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns for Maduro’s ouster.
On Wednesday, Trump said the U.S. had seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
The U.S. Treasury Department said it imposed sanctions on six shipping companies moving Venezuelan oil, as well as six crude oil tankers that it said “have engaged in deceptive and unsafe shipping practices and continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s corrupt narco-terrorist regime.”
Four of the tankers, including the 2002-built H. Constance and the 2003-built Lattafa, are Panama-flagged, with the other two registered in the Cook Islands and Hong Kong.
The targeted vessels are supertankers that recently loaded crude in Venezuela, according to internal shipping documents from state oil company PDVSA.
Franqui Flores and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, were also hit with sanctions. The two were dubbed the “narco nephews” after their arrest in Haiti in 2015 in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation.
Maduro and his government have denied links to crime and say the U.S. is pursuing regime change to take control of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
"The imperialists thought that our people would falter, but here no one faltered and no one will ever falter," Maduro said in reference to previous sanctions.
Wednesday’s seizure was the first of a Venezuelan oil cargo during U.S. sanctions that have been in force since 2019. It is the Trump administration’s first known action against a Venezuela-related tanker since he ordered a large military buildup in the region.
The administration is planning further tanker seizures, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X that the FBI, Homeland Security and Coast Guard, with support from the U.S. military, carried out a seizure warrant for a crude tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
The move pushed oil prices higher and sharply escalated tensions between Washington and Caraca
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The United States issued new sanctions targeting Venezuela on Thursday, imposing curbs on three nephews of President Nicolas Maduro's wife, as well as six crude oil tankers and shipping companies linked to them, as Washington ramps up pressure on Caracas.
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Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief: here are the top news stories for the 12th of December, covering the latest developments you need to know.
NATO's Secretary-General urged European leaders to step up defence efforts to prevent a war waged by Russia, that could be "on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured".
A powerful magnitude 6.7 earthquake has struck northern Japan, triggering tsunami warnings and forcing thousands of residents to flee to higher ground.
The resignation of Bulgaria's government on Thursday (11 December) puts an end to an increasingly unpopular coalition but is likely to usher in a period of prolonged political instability on the eve of the Black Sea nation's entry into the euro zone.
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