US EditionUS imposes new sanctions on Maduro family members, oil ships
The U.S. sanctioned Maduro’s nephews, a Panamanian businessman, six shipping firms, and vessels accused of illicit oil trafficking to disrupt narcotics and oil funding for Maduro’s regime.
- On Thursday, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions targeting three nephews of First Lady Cilia Flores, six shipping firms, six crude oil tankers, and a seized oil tanker off Venezuela's coast.
- Treasury officials said the steps are meant to disrupt corruption, narcotrafficking and sanctions evasion sustaining Nicolás Maduro's government, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying, 'Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people.'
- After prior convictions and a 2022 prisoner swap, the nephews Efraín Antonio Campo Flores, Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Carlos Erik Malpica Flores are again designated, with the Treasury blocking their property and freezing businesses half owned by them.
- The Treasury designated the White Crane, Kiara M, H. Constance, Lattafa, Tamia and Monique as blocked property, urging banks, traders, insurers and shippers to review exposure while the forfeiture process for the seized vessel and its cargo proceeds.
- In recent weeks, the Pentagon surged assets including USS Gerald R. Ford amid the largest U.S. Caribbean deployment, while strikes killed at least 87 and Venezuela condemned the tanker seizure as piracy, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres urging restraint and Russian President Vladimir Putin backing Maduro.
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179 Articles
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Venezuela: President Maduro Calls US Seizure of Oil Tanker Act of Piracy, Reports Crew Forcibly Disappeared
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro described the detention of an oil tanker seized by US military personnel in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday as an act of piracy. On Thursday night, he reported that the crew was abducted and is missing, a circumstance referred to in human rights terms as a forced disappearance. “Yesterday, they committed an absolutely criminal and illegal act when they carried out a military assault…
On Thursday, the United States imposed new measures against Venezuela, which include sanctions against three nephews of President Nicolás Maduro's wife, as well as six shipping companies that transport Venezuelan crude and ships linked to them. On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy seized one of those superoilers near the coast of Venezuela.Continue reading...
Two of the relatives had already been convicted of drug trafficking and subsequently released in an exchange of prisoners in 2022.
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