US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean [View all]

Source: Associated Press

Politics

US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean

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The Pentagon, the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense, is seen from the air, Sept. 20, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, FIle)

By BEN FINLEY
Updated 9:27 AM EST, February 15, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.

Venezuela had faced U.S. sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.

Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that U.S. forces boarded the Veronica III, conducting “a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.”

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

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-oil-tanker-boarded-sanctions-pentagon-quarantine-682ddfc053bbd54ba3c477929c5b13f2