US Coast Guard intercepts ship bound for Cuba loaded with hidden fuel cargo

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Oct 2, 2026

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The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday it intercepted a cargo ship in the Caribbean last month that was carrying fuel bound for Cuba, the latest move in a Trump administration campaign to cut off oil supplies to the Cuban government.

The Coast Guard did not say where the fuel aboard the container ship Grace was loaded or disclose the amount or type of fuel aboard, nor the ship’s owner or flag.

Ship tracking data show that the Grace likely loaded the fuel in Panama. The vessel sails under a Comoro Islands flag and was bought by Arkos Capital, based in Riga, Latvia. The Grace is the company’s only vessel.

A Coast Guard tactical team boarded the ship in early September as it sailed toward Cuba, the agency said. According to the statement, the ship was believed to be using tactics common to the so-called “dark fleet,” vessels that disguise their ownership, movements or cargo to evade enforcement.

The Coast Guard then escorted the Grace to Progreso, Mexico, where a Mexican Navy inspection team confirmed large quantities of fuel in the ship’s ballast tanks. Those tanks normally hold water to help control ships’ stability and balance at sea.

The Coast Guard said several containers aboard the Grace were also believed to hold illicit fuel.

According to tracking website VesselFinder, the Grace likely had already carried fuel to Cuba this summer.

It arrived on July 18 at the port of Mariel, west of Havana, near a major power station. The ship’s draft, a measure of how deep a boat or ship sits in the water, indicates it departed Panama loaded with fuel and unloaded it in Mariel, said Jorge Piñón, an energy expert at the University of Texas, Austin who tracks oil shipments to Cuba. That first trip might have caught the attention of U.S. authorities.

The ship left Mariel on July 22. It arrived at the port of Progreso in Mexico on Aug. 10 empty, according to the tracking data. It then headed to Panama and departed loaded on Aug. 31, Piñón said, citing the draft data. The New York Times reported the Grace was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard between Cuba and Mexico on Sept. 5.

The data also show the Grace left Mariel headed to Venezuela in May.

“Illicit fuel shipments violate international law and pose severe environmental threats in the Caribbean Sea,” said Vice Adm. Nate Moore, the Coast Guard’s deputy commandant for operations. The agency said ballast tanks are not built to carry fuel, raising the risk of a spill.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday said dark fleet operators “will not evade justice.”

Two cutters, a surveillance aircraft and law enforcement personnel took part in the operation along with the Coast Guard Southeast District team based in Miami.

The Grace is the second ship the Coast Guard has stopped on its way to Cuba. Earlier this summer, it boarded and detained the Jaira Provider, a 1978 offshore supply vessel flagged in St. Kitts and Nevis that the agency also said was carrying illicit fuel to the island.

The interdictions come as Cuba endures its worst energy crisis in decades. Cuban leaders have said the island stopped receiving oil as of January, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela by U.S. forces. President Donald Trump then signed an executive order threatening tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil, a move aimed at pressuring Mexico, which halted shipments by state oil company Pemex.

The shortages quickly affected life on the island. Cuba warned international airlines in February that jet fuel would not be available at its airports, and the government announced austerity measures that included sharp cuts to public transportation, a four-day week for state workers, shorter school hours and the suspension of non-emergency surgeries.

In late March, the Trump administration allowed the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin to dock in Matanzas with about 730,000 barrels of crude. In May, Cuba’s energy minister said the country had run out of diesel and fuel oil.

But sales of U.S. fuel to Cuba’s private sector, authorized by the Trump administration in February, have soared, making the United States the primary fuel supplier to Cuba.

According to figures compiled by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, U.S. companies have exported $157 million in fuel to Cuban private entities through July this year.