US forces seize sanctioned oil tanker in Indian ocean after pursuit from the Caribbean

The US forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday.

"The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It ran, and we followed. The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain. By land, air, or sea, our Armed Forces will find you and deliver justice. You will run out of fuel long before you will outrun us," it said in a post on X.



The Pentagon did not clarify whether the vessel had links to Venezuela, a country under US oil sanctions that depends on a shadow fleet of misflagged tankers to move its crude into international markets.




Following the US-led removal of Nicolás Maduro in a surprise overnight operation on January 3, the Trump administration moved to assert control over Venezuela’s oil production, refining, and global supply chains. Officials said the seizure of oil tankers was intended to raise funds to revive the country’s struggling oil sector and help rebuild its economy.

At the same time, Trump has sought to curb oil supplies to Cuba, which remains under strict US sanctions and depends heavily on shipments from partners such as Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela. Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has declared that Cuban oil imports from Venezuela would cease, claiming the Cuban government was nearing collapse.