The U.S. Coast Guard’s unique maritime law enforcement mission has recently been on display with the recent seizures and pursuits of foreign vessels.
First, on Sunday, December 21, 2025, U.S. officials confirmed the pursuit of a third sanctioned oil tanker flying a false flag and carrying sanctioned oil. Earlier that weekend, on December 20, 2025, the U.S. Navy supported the U.S. Coast Guard’s seizure of a second oil tanker as part of a broader American blockade to stop the transport of sanctioned oil. A week prior to that, a Coast Guard team along with Marines and other forces seized The Skipper, a sanctioned vessel, carrying oil off the coast of Venezuela. The Department of Justice recently unsealed the seizure warrant for The Skipper, citing 18 USC §§ 981, 982, 2332b(g)(5), and 2339B(a)(1) for the authorization of seizure of assets of an entity engaged in the planning or perpetuating the federal crime of terrorism.
Videos of coastguardsmen rappelling out of Navy helicopters to take control of the vessels have been widely circulated, reminiscent of the public’s focus six years ago on the boarding of a submersible by a team from the CGC Douglas Munro. These stories showcase the critical expertise and training of the Coast Guard’s Maritime Special Response Team (MSRT) and other specialized “green” Coast Guard units that formed after 9/11. William Thiesen, the Atlantic Area Historian recently wrote about the history of these units, which can be found here. A quick summary is below.
In 2002, Congress passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act which created a maritime security force that the Coast Guard could use to protect the nation’s ports and waterways. Later that year, the Coast Guard created the first Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST). Today, there are nearly a dozen MSST teams that can be called upon for military force protection missions, national special security events and natural disaster response teams.
Four years later, the Coast Guard merged a MSST unit with others to create the first MSRT team, based in Chesapeake, Virginia. Over a decade later in 2017, a second MSRT unit formed in San Diego. Together these units can be available for a variety of rapid response and national security missions including providing a boarding team for U.S. Navy operations, like the recent seizures of vessels off the coast of Venezuela.
The U.S. Coast Guard often partners with the U.S. Navy due to its unique law enforcement authority stemming from 14 USC §422. While the U.S. Navy can board a vessel under limited circumstances without constituting an act of war, the U.S. Coast Guard has broad authority to make “inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas and waters over which the United States has jurisdiction, for the prevention, detection, and suppression of violations of laws of the United States.” This authority honors the legacy of the Coast Guard’s precursor agency, the Revenue Cutter Service best described in Federalist Papers No. 12. “A few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws.”
Some recent prior examples of the U.S. Coast Guard partnering with the U.S. Navy include two instances in 2021 that involved boarding teams seizing illicit weapons in the North Arabian Sea and stopping weapons and ammunition from being delivered to the Houthis in Yemen. Moreover, the CGC Clarence Sulphin Jr directly seized 200 packages of ballistic missile, unmanned vehicle and launcher components on route to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
If you are interested in becoming Maritime Enforcement Specialist, check out Go Coast Guard’s resources and the 9.3 week A-School at the Maritime Law Enforcement Academy in Charleston. There are also opportunities to become an officer with a response career path that includes law enforcement.
(The author is responsible for the content of this article. The views expressed do not reflect the official policy or position of his employer, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve or the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary).
