On Saturday, the Coast Guard boarded the Centuries, a Panamanian-flagged tanker that had recently loaded Venezuelan crude oil, reportedly for a Chinese trader.
A Venezuela-bound vessel fled after rebuffing an attempt by the Coast Guard to seize it, the latest twist in the escalating U.S. pressure campaign against the Maduro government.
A frame grab from a video posted on social media by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, showed a helicopter flying over Centuries, another oil tanker, which was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday.