Venezuelan lawmaker Carlos Paparoni stated on December 10, 2025, that the AZURE ship was intercepted today while leaving Venezuela to place oil on the international black market, evading US sanctions and using routes linked to criminal networks operating with the Nicolás Maduro regime, according to his X post shared in the 29-minute reporting window ending at 9:45 p.m. UTC. This interception aligns with President Donald Trump's statement around 9:00 p.m. UTC that US forces seized a large oil tanker off Venezuela's coast earlier that evening and the United States will retain its oil cargo, as relayed by X posts from @CrannofonixNews and @FaytuksNetwork in the prior window, following a US Coast Guard-led operation with Navy support reported by The New York Times. Satellite images from Sentinel-2 captured at 3:17 p.m. UTC on December 10 show six US Air Force KC-135R Stratotankers parked on the maintenance-closed runway 17-35 at Santo Domingo's Las Américas Airport in the Dominican Republic, where operations use an alternate runway, according to X posts by @Flightwatcher1 shared twice in the reporting window. Separately, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated to the people of Colombia that "sooner rather than later we have to re-found Gran Colombia," according to an X post by @AlertaMundoNews during the period.
