US forces board tanker in Indian Ocean that fled Trump’s Venezuela blockade 

United States forces have boarded another tanker in the Indian Ocean that was sanctioned for carrying Venezuelan oil, according to the Pentagon.

In a post on X on Sunday, the Pentagon said the Panamanian-flagged Veronica III had “tried to defy” US President Donald Trump’s blockade of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and attempted to “slip away”.

But, “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down”, it said.

The post included a video of US forces boarding a helicopter and then boarding the tanker ship.

Venezuela faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure President Nicolas Maduro, before US special forces abducted the Venezuelan leader in January.

Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight.

Last week, the Pentagon also intercepted the Aquila II in a similar fashion.

At least nine ships have been seized so far.

The seizures are part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to take control of Venezuela’s oil.

US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told NBC News on Thursday that oil sales from Venezuela, controlled by Washington, have generated more than $1bn since Maduro’s capture. He said the sales in the next few months will bring in another $5bn.

According to TankerTrackers.com, the Veronica III left Venezuela on January 3, the same day as Maduro’s abduction, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil.

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

The vessel has been under US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The Panama Maritime Authority said in a brief statement on Sunday that the ship was no longer registered there and had been cancelled in December 2024.

The Pentagon did not say in the post whether the Veronica III was formally seized and placed under US control. It told The Associated Press news agency in an email that it had no additional information to provide beyond that post.

The ships seized in recent months make up only a tiny fraction of the total number of sanctioned “shadow fleet” vessels operating worldwide.

The AFP news agency, citing a senior US coastguard officer, said the number could be as high as 800.

On Saturday, US forces also attacked a boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing three people, as it continues deadly air strikes on vessels it alleges are carrying drugs. The strikes have killed at least 133 people since September 2025.