US Navy Intercepts Oil Tanker in High-Stakes Indian Ocean Operation: Tracked from Caribbean Waters

WASHINGTON – In a decisive move against illicit oil activities linked to Venezuela, U.S. military forces have intercepted a sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon revealed on Sunday. This operation comes after the vessel was tracked from the Caribbean Sea, highlighting efforts to curb the smuggling of Venezuelan crude oil into the international market.

For years, Venezuela’s oil industry has been under the strict scrutiny of U.S. sanctions. These measures have driven the country to use a covert fleet of tankers operating under false flags to distribute its oil globally. In December, former President Donald Trump intensified these efforts by ordering a quarantine on sanctioned vessels, part of a strategy to exert pressure on the then-President Nicolás Maduro. This campaign culminated in Maduro’s capture in January during a U.S. military operation.

In the aftermath of this high-stakes raid, numerous tankers attempted to escape Venezuelan waters, among them the Veronica III, which was seized in the Indian Ocean. The Department of Defense, through a statement on X, reported that U.S. forces conducted a “right-of-visit, maritime interdiction, and boarding” on the vessel.

The Pentagon emphasized the ship’s attempt to evade detection, stating, “The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.”

Accompanying the announcement, the Pentagon released video footage capturing the moment U.S. troops boarded the tanker, reinforcing the ongoing commitment to enforcing sanctions and maintaining international maritime security.

The Veronica III is a Panamanian-flagged vessel under U.S. sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil, TankerTrackers.com posted Sunday on X.

“Since 2023, she’s been involved with Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil,” the organization said.

Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, told The Associated Press in January that his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of the quarantine.

The Trump administration has been seizing tankers as part of its broader efforts to take control of the Venezuela’s oil. The Pentagon did not say in the post whether the Veronica III was formally seized and placed under U.S. control, and later told the AP in an email that it had no additional information to provide beyond that post.

Last week, the U.S. military boarded a different tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Aquila II. The ship was being held while its ultimate fate was decided by the United States, according to a defense official who spoke last week on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing decision-making.

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Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.