The ship is to be taken to a US port and the US intends to seize the oil, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said late on Thursday.
Around the same time, the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, announced that three men who are close relatives of Maduro's wife Cilla Flores were being sanctioned. Two of them had previously been convicted of drug trafficking in the United States but were released in a prisoner exchange, according to CNN .
Increased tensions
Six companies in the shipping industry and a businessman from Panama are also subject to sanctions.
Maduro and his "criminal accomplices are drowning the United States in drugs that are poisoning the American people," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claims in a statement.
Tensions between the countries have escalated significantly since US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the oil tanker in question had been seized. The US claims that the ship is linked to Russia's so-called shadow fleet, which Moscow uses to circumvent Western sanctions.
New era
Shortly after the dramatic operation against the over 300-meter-long ship, when American marines were launched from helicopters at the tanker, the Venezuelan government condemned the United States and accused the country of theft.
"They kidnapped the crew, stole the ship and have started a new era of criminal piracy in the Caribbean. Venezuela will reclaim all the ships to ensure the free trade of our oil in the world," Maduro said late Thursday local time.
In recent months, the United States has carried out repeated deadly attacks on ships allegedly smuggling drugs off the coast of Venezuela.
