The tanker seized off the coast of Venezuela by US officials hid its true location while it was docked at a Venezuelan oil terminal last month, according to satellite imagery and shipping data reviewed by CNN.
On November 18, the Skipper was seen on satellite imagery docked around seven miles from the coastal Venezuelan city of Barcelona, according to a satellite image provided by Planet Labs. But at the same time, the ship’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder was indicating it was located around 560 miles away, off the coast of Georgetown, Guyana.
Analysts say oil tankers sometimes “spoof” their AIS location to hide questionable or illegal activities. The Skipper broadcast the same coordinates, placing it off the coast of Guyana for nearly the entire month of November, before it stopped broadcasting its location altogether.
In the satellite image, the Skipper can be seen docked at the Jose Oil Terminal, which is located around 7 miles from Barcelona city and is operated by Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company, PDVSA.
Before arriving in Venezuela, the Skipper appeared to dock in Port Said, Egypt in November 2024, according to shipping data. It appeared to have docked in Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates in June 2025, according to shipping data.
From the UAE, the Skipper then travelled towards the coast of Iran. At one point in early July, it loitered less than 15 miles off Iran’s coast for several days.
Outside of the Middle East, the Skipper made an anchorage off Hong Kong in August. It also transited the Strait of Malacca two times between July and September, according to shipping data.
The Skipper, previously named the Adisa, was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for supporting facilitating oil trades for Hezbollah and the Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, according to the US Treasury.
Correction: An earlier version of this post included the wrong year for the Skipper’s docking in Port Said.