{"id":348641,"date":"2026-01-02T19:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/348641\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T19:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T19:34:11","slug":"bbc-verify-live-unpacking-the-latest-stats-on-flu-in-england-and-2025-small-boat-crossings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/348641\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Verify Live: Unpacking the latest stats on flu in England and 2025 small boat crossings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tanker pursued by US Coast Guard renamed and registered in Russiapublished at 13:13 GMT<\/p>\n

13:13 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Kayleen Devlin
BBC Verify senior journalist<\/p>\n

Media caption, <\/p>\n

Ros Atkins on\u2026 the oil tanker being pursued by the US<\/p>\n

A tanker the White House says is being pursued by the US Coast Guard has been renamed and is now registered in Russia, according to the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The US began pursuing Bella 1 – which is now called Marinera – off the coast of Venezuela having put sanctions on it late last year, for allegedly transporting Iranian oil. <\/p>\n

The US has previously seized two tankers in the southern Caribbean as it puts pressure on the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

AIS tracking data for the tanker, which can be spoofed – faked, was last updated today and suggests the tanker is in the North Atlantic approximately 2,000km (1,200 miles) west of continental Europe.<\/p>\n

Under international law, vessels flying a country\u2019s flag are under the protection of that nation. But Dimitris Ampatzidis, senior risk and compliance analyst at maritime intelligence firm Kpler, told BBC Verify changing the ship\u2019s name and flag may not change much.<\/p>\n

\u201cUS action is driven by the vessel\u2019s underlying identity (IMO number), ownership\/control networks, and sanctions history, not by its painted markings or flag claim,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ampatzidis added that changing to the Russian registry may cause \u201cdiplomatic friction\u201d but would not stop any US enforcement action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tanker pursued by US Coast Guard renamed and registered in Russiapublished at 13:13 GMT 13:13 GMT Kayleen DevlinBBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-348641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}