American forces on Wednesday seized two oil tankers the US said had been used to smuggle Venezuelan oil, including a Russian-flagged ship in the Atlantic believed to have carried illegal cargo for a company allegedly owned by Hezbollah.
Britain's Defence Secretary, John Healey, told parliament that the ship's seizure had also damaged Iran's ability to fund terrorism around the globe.
Footage released by the US showed troops rappelling from helicopters during predawn takeovers of the ships. The tanker in the Atlantic, the Marinera – formerly called Bella 1 – was seized after breaking through Washington's maritime blockade off Venezuela more than two weeks ago.
The military's Southern Command described the second ship, Sophia, as a stateless “dark fleet” motor tanker that was apprehended in international waters in the Caribbean.
“US Coast Guard tactical teams worked closely with counterparts at the Departments of War, Department of Justice and State and used their specialised expertise to conduct these operations and conduct two safe, effective boardings within hours of each other," US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
The Bella 1 tanker changed its name to Marinera, painting the word on its hull while being pursued, and had adopted the Russian flag, Ms Noem said.
The US action was aimed at enforcing sanctions on Iran and preventing it “from fuelling instability through the profits of illegal oil sales", Mr Healey told Parliament on Wednesday evening.
The Marinera had moved 7.3 million barrels of Iranian crude, “the proceeds of which have used to finance terrorism, threat and instability across the world”, he added.
M Healey promised that Britain would increase its disruption of the Russian shadow tanker fleet that had helped earn Moscow $100 billion of sanctioned oil money to fund its war against Ukraine.
By forcing 200 ships off the seas, they had halved Russia’s shadow fleet's overall capacity, and its oil revenues were now down 27 per cent, he said.
The Marinera's capture could raise tension with Moscow as the Trump administration negotiates with Russia in a bid to end the war in Ukraine. Andrey Klishas, a senior Russian legislator from the ruling United Russia party, described the ship's seizure as an act of outright ''piracy'', the Tass state news agency reported.
Russia's Transport Ministry said it had lost all contact with the Marinera after US naval forces boarded it. The ship had avoided the maritime blockade after rebuffing US Coast Guard attempts to board it off Venezuela last month.
Under international law, vessels flying a country's flag are under the protection of that nation. The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported a Russian submarine had been escorting the tanker.
After a transatlantic pursuit by the US Coast Guard lasting more than two weeks, military personnel carried out the operation to take over the Marinera early on Wednesday. US European Command said the ship had been seized “pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court after being tracked by USCGC Munro”.
Flight-tracking websites showed US special operations aircraft landing at a Scottish airport, Wick John O’Groats, before flying further north towards Iceland on Wednesday.
The ship seizures are the latest incidents in US President Donald Trump's pressure campaign against Venezuela under which its president Nicolas Maduro was taken captive on Saturday.
The success of that operation, from a military planning standpoint, has emboldened the Trump administration to threaten interventions in other countries, including Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Greenland.
Any move on Greenland, which is part of the Danish realm, would tear at the fabric of Nato, potentially triggering an unparalleled crisis for the alliance and transatlantic ties.
Mr Trump on Wednesday said on Truth Social: “We will always be there for Nato, even if they won't be there for us.”
The Marinera appears to have been closely monitored in the past two days by US P-8 Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft flying from an RAF base in Britain, flight records indicate. The tanker was also monitored by Irish aircraft when 400km off the Ireland's coast.
A UK government representative said it would not comment on speculation about the tanker, or the use of British military bases by third parties.
The UK military said it provided planned operational support, including basing, to US military assets interdicting the Bella 1 in the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap following a request from Washington for assistance.
British Defence Secretary John Healey said: “This ship, with a nefarious history, is part of a Russian-Iranian axis of sanctions evasion which is fuelling terrorism, conflict, and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine.''
The tanker had been preparing to pick up oil from Venezuela but on December 20 the US Coast Guard approached it on suspicion its country of registration was invalid.
The crew refused to allow US forces to board and the ship sailed away, re-registering as the Marinera in the Russian port of Sochi.
Despite being empty, the US Coast Guard pursued it into the Atlantic in a bid to crack down on the “ghost fleet” of tankers that take illicit oil around the world, including black-market oil sold by Russia.
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control, a financial intelligence and enforcement agency within the Treasury Department, has designated the owner for carrying sanctioned cargo on behalf of a Hezbollah-owned company.
TankerTrackers, a specialist monitoring service, reported that Bella 1 had transported 7.3 million barrels of Iranian crude and 3.7 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil to China between 2021 and 2025.
