This image from video posted on Attorney General Pam Bondi's X account, and partially redacted by the source, shows an oil tanker being seized by U.S. forces off the coast of Venezuela, December 10, 2025. Photo: U.S. Attorney General's Office/X via AP
VENEZUELA has lodged a complaint to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) about the US seizure of an oil tanker in the Caribbean.
The Venezuelans filed the complaint on Thursday to the London-based IMO over what many observers have labelled an act of piracy by the US on Wednesday.
The country’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez said she had communicated with IMO executive secretary Arsenio Dominguez, with the aim of “formally and legally addressing this serious situation.”
VP Rodriguez described the incident as a blatant robbery and said the action “exposed the true interests of the US in its ongoing aggression against Venezuela.”
Ms Rodriguez explained that there are international conventions that protect freedom of navigation against illicit acts that threaten it, such as the attack on an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude.
She said the disproportionate military deployment in the Caribbean Sea, with aircraft carriers and destroyers, “appears to be an operation to disrupt the region’s economic and commercial activity, as well as to blatantly steal Venezuela’s natural resources.”
The vice-president slammed the illegal action of the US which she said “seeks to harm maritime oil trade.”
Ms Rodriguez said Venezuela was doing what must be done: “Appeal to the law, to international legality, and defend its natural resources.”
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