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America sold 2 oil tankers seized from Venezuela as scrap, now they will be demolished in India

Sandy Verma | August 11, 2026 11:24 AM CST

America had seized two tankers involved in the transportation of banned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Now both these ships have been sold as scrap and preparations are underway for their demolition in India.

New Delhi: America has now sold two banned oil tankers seized during the action against Venezuela as scrap. The special thing is that the final destination of these ships will be India’s ship-breaking yard, where they will be broken and converted into scrap. Information to this entire deal has been revealed in the report of ‘Lloyd List’.

According to the report, Dubai-based ship recycling company ‘Global Marketing Systems’ (GMS) has purchased both the tankers last month. However, the price at which the US government sold these ships has not been disclosed yet. The first ship among the two tankers sold is ‘Era’. It was earlier also known as ‘Marinera’ and ‘Bella 1’. The second ship is ‘Lileo’, which has previously operated with the names ‘Galileo’ and ‘Veronica’. Both ships were already under US sanctions.

Both tankers will be broken in India

Now both these ships will be brought to India and destroyed in the ship-breaking yard. GMS CEO Anil Sharma told in a conversation with ‘Lloyd’s List’ that the sale of these tankers has been done by the US government and court approval was also obtained for it. He also said that there are some problems in this deal. The biggest problem among these is that the company did not have complete information about the previous owner of these ships.

The action took place in the Atlantic and Caribbean Sea

The US Coast Guard and military special forces captured the Russian-flagged ‘Era’ tanker in the southern waters of Iceland in January. According to US officials, the ship had tried to avoid the US blockade imposed in the Caribbean region to stop oil exports from Venezuela.

America alleged that ‘Era’ was being used to transport banned oil from Venezuela and Iran. At the same time, in January itself, American agencies had also seized another Russian-flagged tanker named ‘Leeleo’ from the Caribbean Sea. This ship was under US sanctions imposed on Russia.

Trying to escape by changing name

After the US action, it came to light that at least 10 oil tankers were captured in the operation to Venezuela. To avoid sanctions and investigation, such ships often change their names, thereby trying to hide their identity.