Maybe we should start treating these stories as birth announcements. The US Coast Guard is proud to announce the new addition to its family of merchant tankers! Join us in celebrating this blessed event … Perhaps the USCG could work in a gender-reveal video on occasion, just for the lulz.
Today, the Coast Guard seized its fifth tanker in the last few weeks, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to break the black-market oil distribution ring that finances rogue regimes and terrorists. The effort began as a way to shut down Nicolas Maduro’s income stream. The boarding of the Olina shows that Donald Trump has longer-range goals:
The U.S. Coast Guard boarded a fifth oil tanker early Friday morning and continued to eye other vessels trying to evade the U.S. blockade on sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela, according to U.S. officials.
The tanker targeted Friday was the Olina, said the officials and Vanguard, a shipping security and tracking company. The ship, previously named the Minerva M, was sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in transporting Russian oil. The move is likely to inflame tensions between Washington and Moscow days after the U.S. seized a ship that claimed Russian protection and was being escorted by the Russian Navy.
The ship has an East Timor flag, and the last time it transmitted its position was in mid-November near the coast of Venezuela, according to Marine Traffic, a global ship-tracking service, which added that it was sailing under a false flag.
The seizures are being used by the Trump administration to exert pressure on Venezuela’s interim government and take the so-called dark fleet of tankers out of operation. The dark fleet, also known as the shadow fleet, comprises more than 1,000 ships that engage in deceptive activities to conceal their role in transporting sanctioned and illicit oil.
In the short run, this does put pressure on Delcy Rodriguez, who wants to run the Maduro regime without Maduro himself, who will spend much of the rest of his life as a guest of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She needs the revenue from illicit oil sales just as much as Maduro did, and possibly more, given her less-stable situation at the top of the regime. Trump wants the regime gone, but doesn’t necessarily want to put boots on the ground to accomplish it. Better to starve the regime and let the hyenas tear each other apart, but hopefully before Venezuelans pay the prices for that kind of collapse for too long.
However, these seizures clearly serve a larger goal. As the WSJ notes, the same illicit shipping ring carries oil from other sources, mostly Russia and Iran, allowing these regimes to maintain income streams that bypass sanctions. The WSJ also provides an analysis of how sophisticated this ring has become, who benefits, and why Trump sees this as a security and strategic challenge:
Russia, Iran and Venezuela have amassed a fleet of old tanker ships to move sanctioned barrels of oil products around the world—or use as floating storage at sea.
Ship operators go to elaborate lengths to disguise the origin of their cargo and avoid detection, changing vessel names and spoofing their locations. They do the latter by falsifying GPS coordinates, using fake vessel names and duplicating transmissions to create ghost ships. On Wednesday, U.S. forces also boarded a tanker near the Caribbean that was broadcasting its location as being close to Nigeria at the time.
There are now more than 1,470 tankers classed as being part of the shadow or dark fleet, according to the ship monitoring website TankerTrackers.com. Their number has swelled since 2022 as Russia has looked for routes around Western sanctions for its war against Ukraine.
S&P Global puts their numbers at 940, which represent 17% of tankers currently transporting oil, oil products and chemicals around the world.
The shadow fleet transported some 3.7 billion barrels of oil in 2025, accounting for 6% to 7% of the annual global crude oil flows, according to Kpler.
This system provides a significant income stream to Russia and Iran, which allow both nations to continue aggressive military and terror operations. Trump isn’t just attempting to force the rump Maduro junta out of power; he wants to cut off Russia’s income stream to force it into a peace agreement on Ukraine. He also wants to bankrupt the IRGC and force the mullahs to flee Tehran, an outcome that looks closer to realization than either of the other two scenarios.
There are secondary issues that matter, too. These rogue ships operate without insurance, without compliance with naval and shipping regulations, and in some cases without regard to seaworthiness. They can and likely occasionally do become risks for legitimate shipping and other maritime traffic. Trump isn’t doing this to act like the Highway Patrol Of The Seas, clearly, but those issues exist, and the scope of the black-market shipping ring means those issues will start becoming acute at some point.
The last question will be one of finances. Does the cost of these seizures outweigh the benefits of the ships and the interdiction? In the short run, yes. However, it will take years to track down and seize even a quarter of this fleet, and the US Navy and US Coast Guard have other duties. We may want to revisit a previously quaint clause of the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the power “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Congress can license privateers to do most of the heavy work in capturing these vessels, with assistance as needed from the US Navy and Coast Guard. Maybe it’s time to make everything old new again.
Update: On the other hand, would privateers get this kind of video out as quickly? Naah.
U.S. SOUTHCOM releases video showing the boarding and capture of oil tanker Olina in the Caribbean. pic.twitter.com/VmbVUzvNEJ
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 9, 2026
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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