U.S. Announces New Sanctions on Maduro Relatives and Venezuela-Linked Tankers

The United States announced new sanctions on Thursday targeting individuals and companies connected to Venezuela. The measures apply to three relatives of President Nicolás Maduro’s wife, as well as six oil tankers and associated shipping firms accused of transporting Venezuelan crude.

The action comes as the U.S. increases its military presence in the southern Caribbean and continues efforts to pressure Maduro’s government. It follows President Donald Trump’s announcement that U.S. authorities had recently seized a sanctioned oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the sanctions apply to six companies involved in moving Venezuelan oil and to six tankers linked to those firms. Four of the vessels are registered in Panama, while the others fly flags from the Cook Islands and Hong Kong. Internal documents from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA indicate the tankers recently loaded crude in the country.

Two nephews of Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores—Franqui Flores and Efraín Antonio Campo Flores—were also sanctioned. They were arrested in 2015 in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operation and convicted the following year of attempting to traffic large quantities of cocaine. Both were sentenced to 18 years in prison but were released in 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange between the United States and Venezuela.

Venezuelan authorities did not immediately issue a response to the new measures.

The recent tanker seizure is the first known confiscation of Venezuelan oil under sanctions imposed in 2019. It also marks the first reported enforcement action against a Venezuela-related vessel since the U.S. expanded its military presence in the region. U.S. officials have previously conducted multiple operations targeting suspected drug-trafficking vessels, drawing scrutiny from lawmakers and legal analysts.