{"id":357190,"date":"2026-01-07T14:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/357190\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:53:09","slug":"us-says-it-has-seized-second-tanker-after-boarding-russian-flagged-vessel-linked-to-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/357190\/","title":{"rendered":"US says it has seized second tanker after boarding Russian-flagged vessel linked to Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why did Marinera change its flag?published at 11:53 GMT<\/p>\n

11:53 GMT<\/p>\n

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

The Marinera tanker reportedly being pursued by US forces changed the flag under which it was registered from Guyana to Russia mid-voyage on 24 December.<\/p>\n

As we reported yesterday<\/a>, several other sanctioned tankers have made similar registry changes to Russia in recent weeks. Michelle Bockmann, a maritime intelligence analyst at Windward, says vessels do sometimes change their flag mid-voyage but that “it\u2019s highly unusual and only seen with dark fleet tankers\u201d. <\/p>\n

Brockman told BBC Verify that changing ship\u2019s flag to a Russian registry can \u201ccomplicate US enforcement efforts\u201d. <\/p>\n

The US Coast Guard tried to board Marinera\/Bella 1 last month in the Caribbean when it was believed to be heading towards Venezuela. It was on a list of tankers under US sanctions. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Brockman added: \u201cWith Marinera, it was previously flying falsely under the flag of Guyana. Under United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, there\u2019s a provision called Article 110 that allows a stateless vessel to be boarded by authorities. By reflagging to Russia, the vessel is no longer able to be boarded under this provision.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since the US seizure of Skipper on 10 December – the first oil tanker seized by the US Coastguard – BBC Verify has identified a total of 18 US-sanctioned oil tankers that switched to a Russian registry, with many of them having previously been sailing under a false flag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why did Marinera change its flag?published at 11:53 GMT 11:53 GMT Kayleen DevlinBBC Verify senior journalist The Marinera…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-357190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357190","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=357190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}