PANAMA CITY, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Panama’s maritime authority on Thursday said it had canceled in January of last year the flag of the M Sophia, a Venezuela-linked oil tanker seized by the U.S. military this week.
The U.S. military’s Southern Command on Wednesday said it had intercepted the M Sophia before dawn, and described it as a “stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker.” Panamanian authorities canceled the supertanker’s flag on January 23, 2025, the AMP authority said in a statement.
The maritime authority also said the Bella-1, a Russian-flagged tanker the U.S. seized the same day near Iceland after a two-week pursuit, was once listed on the country’s registry but this stopped being the case as of October 7, 2024.
A ship’s flag determines who has authority over it. The U.S. says that when a flag is canceled it can become stateless, meaning it lacks protections under international law and may be boarded or even seized.
Panama’s maritime authority did not immediately respond to a request for more information on why the ships were no longer flagged as Panamanian.
The Bella-1 appeared to be the first time in recent memory that the U.S. military has seized a Russian-flagged vessel.
Wednesday’s tanker seizures were third and fourth after the United States intercepted two vessels in December and then captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a pre-dawn raid on the capital Caracas, and demanded authorities there open oil to U.S. companies or risk more military intervention.
Top Venezuelan officials have accused the U.S. of trying to steal the country’s vast oil reserves, estimated to be the largest in the world, but Trump said earlier this week he had reached a deal with Maduro’s successor on crude exports.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno, Marianna Parraga and Sarah Morland; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Alistair Bell)
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