United States military forces have boarded a second sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon confirmed on Sunday. The vessel, the Veronica III, was tracked from the Caribbean Sea as part of ongoing efforts to disrupt illicit oil shipments linked to Venezuela.
The Veronica III, a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to Iran, left Venezuela on 3 January, the same day President Nicolás Maduro was captured during a US military operation. It was carrying nearly two million barrels of crude and fuel oil, according to TankerTrackers.com.
The Pentagon stated that US forces conducted a 'right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding' on the vessel. 'The vessel tried to defy President Trump's quarantine – hoping to slip away,' the Pentagon said in a post on X. 'We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.'
This operation follows the boarding of another tanker, the Aquila II, in the Indian Ocean last week. The US has not confirmed whether the Veronica III has been formally seized, and a defence official said no additional information was available beyond the Pentagon's statement.
Since 2023, the Veronica III has been involved in transporting oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, according to TankerTrackers.com. The Trump administration imposed a quarantine on sanctioned tankers in December to pressure Maduro, and at least 16 tankers fled Venezuela after his capture, according to the monitoring group.
