Jaw-dropping moment US commandos storm Venezuelan 'terror tanker' in breathtaking airborne takedown

[240B]

Jaw-dropping moment US commandos storm Venezuelan 'terror tanker' in breathtaking airborne takedown as tensions rocket toward conflict

Daily Mail
By PHILLIP NIETO
10 December 2025



This is the dramatic moment when US commandos stormed a Venezuelan oil tanker in a breathtaking airborne takedown amid ratcheting tensions in the Caribbean.

Footage released by the Trump administration on Wednesday showed American forces swooping on the tanker in helicopters and rappelling down ropes.

Troops with guns drawn darted up stairs to the bridge to take control of the vessel off the coast of Venezuela.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement on X: 'Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.

'For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.'

The release of the video comes hours after it was reported on Wednesday that the tanker had been seized, sparking fears of a potential blockade and spiking oil prices. No name was given for the 'stateless' vessel, nor was it confirmed precisely where off the coast of Venezuela the raid unfolded.

Trump called it 'the largest one ever seized' and warned that 'other things are happening.'

The capture sent oil prices climbing sharply, with Brent crude rising 1.21 percent to $62.69 a barrel amid fears the escalation could disrupt global supply.

Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to China, which has been the destination of between 55 percent and 90 percent of the country's oil exports.

A Bloomberg report called the move 'a serious escalation' after Trump demanded Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro step down. Caracas did not immediately respond.

(more)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15372421/Trumps-warships-seize-Venezuelan-oil-tanker-sparking-blockade-fears-escalation.html

[mystery-ak]

Why?

[240B]

Why?

Probably for intel reasons that we will never know.

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/MagaDet17/status/1998880738142466148

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/GeorgePapa19/status/1998941962297283015

[mountaineer]

Did we need a war with Venezuela?

[jafo2010]

The USA has failed miserably with its attention to our own back yard.  Another nation allowed to become a communist/socialist bastion that terroized its own people, taking away the freedom and success of its people.  Now they are starving.

China is well on its way to dominating the whole planet while the USA has been asleep at the wheel with no sound foreign policy for the future and our role in the world.  We have funded everything China is doing, claiming they are our number one enemy while we educate 400,000 of their people in our universities, favoring them over US citizens in our grad schools. 

If our approach to the future for the USA is not retarded, what is?  We are self destroying our nation at an accelerated rate for the benefit of the Chinese.  Why?  Because we have become stupid.  And that needs to end, or we end sooner than you think.

[GtHawk]

Did we need a war with Venezuela?

No, but then we weren’t the ones trafficking huge quantities of deadly drugs into their country. So I guess if we keep depriving them of revenue and the where withal to get it instead of flat out invading them with lots of innocent deaths I might not have too big a problem with it.

[GtHawk]

The USA has failed miserably with its attention to our own back yard.  Another nation allowed to become a communist/socialist bastion that terroized its own people, taking away the freedom and success of its people.  Now they are starving.

China is well on its way to dominating the whole planet while the USA has been asleep at the wheel with no sound foreign policy for the future and our role in the world.  We have funded everything China is doing, claiming they are our number one enemy while we educate 400,000 of their people in our universities, favoring them over US citizens in our grad schools. 

If our approach to the future for the USA is not retarded, what is?  We are self destroying our nation at an accelerated rate for the benefit of the Chinese.  Why?  Because we have become stupid.  And that needs to end, or we end sooner than you think.

I thought we learned our lessons about trying to prevent a country from becoming a communist/socialist bastion, or weren’t Korea and Vietnam enough of a lesson? I don’t recall that turning out so well for us. I dispute that ‘we’ are destroying our nation for the Chinese, it is the Russians and now also the Chinese with their paid and indoctrinated  quislings that now teach and manipulate our children that are doing it. But short of rounding up the traitors, communists and terrorists and eliminating them expeditiously, we will be forced to fight in the streets to reclaim America.

[Cyber Liberty]

FTA:

No name was given for the 'stateless' vessel, nor was it confirmed precisely where off the coast of Venezuela the raid unfolded.

"Stateless?"  No flag?

[GtHawk]

FTA:

"Stateless?"  No flag?

Aaarrrr! They be Piroots!

[txradioguy]

Did we need a war with Venezuela?

The ship was actually part of the sanctioned Iranian Shadow Fleet.

The vessel, The Skipper, was named the Adisa when it was sanctioned. The 2022 Treasury statement listed it alongside eight other vessels that it said were part of “a vast, complex, and interwoven global network of front companies that are used to facilitate oil shipments” for a smuggling network.

The operation involved “blending oil to conceal the Iranian origins of the shipments and exporting it around the world in support of Hezbollah and the IRGC-QF,” through a network of shell companies in the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, and Singapore, it added.

https://www.rferl.org/a/tanker-seized-us-venezuela-iranian-shadow-fleet/33620478.html

[mountaineer]

Thanks, @txradioguy
What a tangled web.

[Cyber Liberty]

The ship was actually part of the sanctioned Iranian Shadow Fleet.

https://www.rferl.org/a/tanker-seized-us-venezuela-iranian-shadow-fleet/33620478.html

That would explain the lack of flag.

[txradioguy]

That would explain the lack of flag.

And if IIRC their transponder had the ships location in another part of the world.

[txradioguy]

More info on the Iranian Shadow Fleet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_shadow_fleet

[txradioguy]

Thanks, @txradioguy
What a tangled web.

It's amazing who you discover playing footsie when you shine a light under the covers.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Did we need a war with Venezuela?

This is about access to oil, among other reasons.

Venezuela has been threatening its neighbor Guyana ever since that country discovered its immense oil wealth offshore.  Guyana is friendly with the West and the US has intimated it will protect Guyana from its bully neighbor.

[mystery-ak]

...and here we go..

Dem Sen. Blumenthal: Even if They Got a Warrant, Oil Tanker Seizure ‘Step Toward Possible Conflict’ Without Congressional Approval

Ian Hanchett11 Dec 202557


On Wednesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Weeknight,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) responded to the seizure of an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast by saying that even if the administration got a warrant to take the ship into custody, it’s “still a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuela. So, it is, again, a step toward possible conflict without any authorization from Congress.”

Blumenthal said, “[C]learly, this seizure of an oil tanker, with Venezuelan oil, even if it is a tanker that has illegally shipped Iranian oil in the past, and, therefore, they’ve gotten a seizure warrant to take into custody, is still a significant escalation in the pressure campaign against Venezuela. So, it is, again, a step toward possible conflict without any authorization from Congress.”

He continued, “The idea that there is armed conflict here, and it justifies either seizing the tanker or going against the boats in the Caribbean that they’ve been striking, 23 of them, killing more than 80 people, is really one that cries out for scrutiny. And that’s why I’ve called for a subpoena of all the records, documents, videos, and after-action reports, because what we’re seeing here is a cover-up. The lack of full transparency is deeply troubling.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2025/12/11/dem-sen-blumenthal-even-if-they-got-a-warrant-oil-tanker-seizure-step-toward-possible-conflict-without-congressional-approval/

[mystery-ak]

 Lawmakers react to US seizure of Venezuelan oil tanker
by Max Rego - 12/10/25 6:16 PM ET

Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expressed concern Wednesday that the seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by the U.S. could further increase tensions between the two countries, while other GOP senators said they were awaiting more information.

“It sounds a lot like the beginning of a war,” Paul told NewsNation’s Hannah Brandt on Capitol Hill.

The libertarian senator, a frequent critic of the Trump administration’s posture towards Venezuela, added that it is not “the job of the American government to go looking for monsters around the world, looking for adversaries and beginning wars.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Conn.) echoed Paul’s worries, telling NewsNation that while he does not know the details of the incident, he is “gravely concerned that [Trump] is sleepwalking us into a war with Venezuela.”

Coons, the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, noted that he has not received a detailed briefing on the administration’s plans for a potential war with Venezuela, the path forward or how to manage risks.

Trump told reporters earlier in the afternoon that U.S. forces captured a “very large tanker” off the coast of Venezuela. Attorney General Pam Bondi later released a video of the seizure on X, adding that the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Pentagon executed the seizure warrant on the tanker, which the U.S. said was transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.

The oil was sanctioned due to its “involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi added.

Republican Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Jon Husted (Ohio) and Roger Marshall (Kan.) each told Brandt that they did not know the specifics of the seizure.

“I will look into it,” Hawley said, as he walked into an elevator.

Husted said that he had been in meetings and has not been briefed on the matter.

Marshall, said that while the seizure is “news to me,” the U.S. “should be pushing back on Venezuela.” The Kansas Republican added that he is “concerned about the drug cartel that is running” the South American country.

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5643306-us-venezuela-war-fears/

[PeteS in CA]

The tanker was placed under sanction by LIEden in 2022, probably in an effort to look tough on the Iranians but never intending to DO anything.

The Dems who are howling at Trump daring to act probably know this, but are lying in the expectation that the Dem-shill MSM will cover up LIEden's sanction.

[Cyber Liberty]

The Dems who are howling at Trump daring to act probably know this, but are lying in the expectation that the Dem-shill MSM will cover up LIEden's sanction.

That's a given.

[rustynail]

And a Federal Judge has not ordered the ship returned?

[Timber Rattler]

Probably for intel reasons that we will never know.

Because Trump wants Venezuela's oil.  Everything else going on there is a pretext.

[Timber Rattler]

This is about access to oil, among other reasons.

Venezuela has been threatening its neighbor Guyana ever since that country discovered its immense oil wealth offshore.  Guyana is friendly with the West and the US has intimated it will protect Guyana from its bully neighbor.

Exactly!

 

[berdie]

Because Trump wants Venezuela's oil.  Everything else going on there is a pretext.

I thought their oil was of poor grade and hard to refine?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I thought their oil was of poor grade and hard to refine?

Most of it is indeed as you describe.  But that does not mean it is not valuable.

During the years following the Arab oil embargo of the 70s, American refiners realized that access to the high quality crude was becoming less probable.  This coincided with declining Permian oil fields production.

To combat having refineries incapable of processing refined products, the large refineries along the Gulf Coast were reconfigured (at great cost) to accommodate low quality crudes such as Venezuela possesses (as well as what exists in huge oil fields in Alberta, Canada).

This significantly reduced the raw feedstock per barrel cost to boot, and is why we still want poorer quality crude to come here for refining.