The Marinera tanker seized by the US has re-flagged to circumvent US sanctions, US Vice President J.D. Vance said in an interview with Fox News.
“This was a fake Russian oil tanker. They were essentially trying to pass themselves off as a Russian oil tanker to circumvent sanctions“, Vance said, as quoted by Reuters.
The tanker was originally named Bella 1 and was sailing under the Panamanian flag. The ship tried to approach the Venezuelan coast despite a blockade imposed by Trump in December. After the ship set sail from South America, it was pursued by a US Coast Guard vessel. The crew then painted a Russian flag on the ship and renamed it Marinera.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reported Russians on board the tanker detained by the US.
The tanker Marinera was detained on January 7 in the North Atlantic by the US Coast Guard for “violating US sanctions“.
According to the Russian Transport Ministry, naval forces boarded the ship, after which contact with it was lost. The Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Russian citizens were on board the detained ship.
The ministry reported that the ship had been granted temporary permission to fly the Russian flag on the basis of Russian and international law. The ministry noted that “in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation applies in the waters of the high seas and no state has the right to use force against ships duly registered in the jurisdiction of other states“.
Moscow demanded that the United States ensure that the tanker crew members would be treated with dignity and would not impede their prompt return to their homeland.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi later announced that the tanker crew members were “under full investigation“ and that “all those involved“ would face criminal charges.
“All those involved“, she said, would face criminal charges. Pam Bondi reported this in X.
“Today, the United States executed a court order to seize the Bella 1, a crude oil carrier responsible for transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. The Bella 1 was previously designated for its role in a sanctions evasion network that supported foreign terrorist organizations,“ she wrote.
Bondi added that the U.S. Department of Justice is monitoring several other vessels that could be subject to “similar law enforcement action“.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said earlier that the Marinera crew could be extradited to the United States for prosecution.
Until late December, the “Marinera“ tanker was known as “Bella 1“, sailed under the Panamanian flag and was subject to U.S. sanctions. Washington believed the ship was part of a covert flotilla involved in the illegal transport of oil used to finance Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. The tanker had arrived on the Venezuelan coast from Iran.