A U.S. Navy sailor has been de­tained in Venezuela af­ter trav­el­ing there unau­tho­rized on per­son­al busi­ness, the Pen­ta­gon said Wednes­day. The en­list­ed sailor was de­tained last week by Venezue­lan law en­force­ment, two de­fense of­fi­cials said.

One of the of­fi­cials said the sailor has been in Venezue­lan cus­tody since on or about Aug. 30.

“The U.S. Navy is look­ing in­to this and work­ing close­ly with the State De­part­ment,” the Pen­ta­gon said in a state­ment.

The of­fi­cials, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to pro­vide de­tails not made pub­lic, re­ferred to the State De­part­ment for an up­date on the sailors’ sta­tus.

One of the of­fi­cials said the ser­vice mem­ber was nei­ther on of­fi­cial trav­el nor did they have au­tho­rized leave to vis­it Venezuela. The de­ten­tion fol­lows a sim­i­lar dis­ap­pear­ance ear­li­er this year when a U.S. Army sol­dier was ar­rest­ed af­ter trav­el­ing to Rus­sia to vis­it his girl­friend. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by TARA COPP | As­so­ci­at­ed Press