US seizes 90 fuel shipments to Cuba as energy blockade tightens

US has intercepted 90 fuel shipments valued at nearly $3m from being exported to Cuba, widening a U.S.-imposed oil blockade aimed at choking off illegally trafficked fuel.

Homeland Security Investigations said the shipments were headed for a sanctioned Cuban entity.

These shipments were destined to a Cuban energy firm sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

HSI Miami Special Agent in Charge Jose Figueroa vowed in a statement that the agency would work with partners to “continue to identify, disrupt and investigate efforts to evade U.S. sanctions, protect the integrity of U.S. export controls and deny the Cuban government access to resources obtained in violation of U.S. law.”

HSI Miami, US Customs and Border Protection, and Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) acted at Port Everglades and Port Houston seizing $2.8m in biodiesel fuel shipments suspected of unlawful export to a sanctioned Cuban entity.

“HSI Miami and our federal partners stopped millions of dollars in fuel from reaching a sanctioned Cuban entity,” Homeland Security Investigations wrote in a post on X. “If you attempt to evade U.S. sanctions, you will face the consequences.”

The action tacks onto earlier efforts by the United States Coast Guard to disrupt Cuba-bound maritime fuel shipments. U.S. Coast Guard announced last week that it had intercepted a motor vessel carrying fuel to Cuba.

The official statement from the Coast Guard said a tactical team boarded the vessel in the Caribbean Sea as it was transiting to Cuba.

Following the boarding, the Coast Guard escorted the vessel to Progreso in Mexico, where a Mexican Navy (MARINA) inspection team “confirmed the presence of large quantities of fuel in the vessel’s ballast tanks. The vessel was also carrying several containers believed to contain illicit fuel,” the statement added.

The operation involved the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alert (WMEC-630) and cutter Charles Sexton (WPC-1108), a U.S. Coast Guard HC-144 fixed-wing aircraft, the U.S. Coast Guard Tactical Law Enforcement Team South, and the U.S. Coast Guard Southeast District watchstanders.

The interdiction of the container ship follows the Coast Guard’s boarding and detention of another vessel determined to be carrying illicit fuel to Cuba earlier this summer.