Sanctions Enforcement

U.S. forces seized The Skipper — a 332–333 meter tanker formerly known as Adisa and sanctioned in 2022 for links to an IRGC/Hezbollah oil network — in a helicopter-borne, fast-rope boarding led by the Coast Guard MSRT with Navy support from USS Gerald R. Ford; a federal seizure warrant signed Nov. 26 by Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui and obtained under a statute permitting seizure of assets tied to planning or perpetrating federal terrorism offenses was unsealed and shows the vessel was taken just before the warrant expired. The Skipper was carrying roughly 1.8–2 million barrels of heavy crude (about half alleged to belong to a Cuban state importer), U.S. officials say the cargo will be subject to forfeiture and brought to a U.S. port, and Venezuela has denounced the move as “piracy.”