The United States intercepted another oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean

“Overnight, US forces conducted a right of inspection, maritime interdiction and boarding visit to the Veronica III without incident in the Indopacom (Indo-Pacific Command) area of ​​responsibility,” the Pentagon revealed in an X message accompanied by a video of the operation.

According to the US Armed Forces, “the ship attempted to defy the quarantine ordered by President Donald Trump, hoping to escape.”

“We follow him from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we shorten the distance and neutralize it. No other nation has the reach, stamina or will to do something like this. International waters are not a sanctuary. By land, sea or air, we will find you and do justice“adds the writing.

The operation was carried out after a similar deployment that took place, also in the Indian Ocean, last Monday. In addition, the United States bombed another suspected drug boat in international waters in the Caribbean on Friday.

In that case, the three occupants of the boat died, according to the Southern Command. The boat “was traveling along known drug trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was participating in drug trafficking operations,” added US military authorities.

He Veronica IIIidentified as a Panamanian-flagged vessel by the tracking site Marine Traffic, is one of around 16 sanctioned tankers that would have tried to circumvent the US blockade, according to The New York Timesamong them the Aquila II, intercepted by Washington on February 9, also in the Indian Ocean.

As published by Times in early January, to try to slip out of American reach, the Veronica III would have assumed the name ‘DS Vector’ y falsified its coordinates to pretend that it was located off the coast of Nigeria.

Since December 2025, the United States has applied a maritime “quarantine” on sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, within the so-called Operation Lanza del Sur, in which at least eight vessels have already been boarded or seized. These limitations include crude oil shipments to Cuba.

Trump also ordered tariffs on countries that send oil to the Caribbean nation, a pressure mechanism that is strangling the island.

The stated objective is to prevent Venezuelan oil from being sold outside the channels authorized by Washington and to cut off income to networks considered allies of Russia, Iran or Cuba itself.

“The War Department will deny illicit actors and their front men freedom of movement in the maritime domain,” the US Armed Forces insisted today in its message.