US boards second Venezuela-linked tanker in Indian Ocean

US military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean, the Pentagon said. The department described the operation as a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III, and said the ship tried to defy President Trump's quarantine before forces closed the distance and shut it down.

Video posted by the Pentagon showed US troops boarding the tanker. The Treasury department's Office of Foreign Assets Control lists the Veronica III as a Panamanian-flagged vessel under US sanctions related to Iran. TankerTrackers.com posted on X that the ship left Venezuela on 3 January with nearly 2m barrels of crude and fuel oil and has been involved since 2023 with Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil.

Venezuela has been subject to US oil sanctions for several years and relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to move crude into global supply chains.

Venezuela, Indian Ocean

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