VIDEO Oil tanker “chased, hunted” and captured by the US Navy in the Indian Ocean. American soldiers descend, like in the movies, from the helicopter on board the ship
A Cuban-flagged LPG/chemical oil tanker arrived at the port of Havana on January 9, 2026. Illustrative image. PHOTO: YAMIL LAGE / AFP / Profimedia
The American Department of Defense (Ministry of War) announced on Monday that it had seized an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean which, according to Washington, was violating the restrictions imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump on crude oil transfers to the Caribbean, restrictions affecting Venezuela and Cuba, AFP and EFE news agencies inform.
“US forces seized” the vessel, the Pentagon said, which had previously announced – in a post on platform X – that US troops had boarded the Aquila II tanker “without incident” after “tracking and hunting” it between the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.
The tanker “defied the quarantine instituted by President Trump on ships sanctioned in the Caribbean. He fled, and we followed him,” the Pentagon stated, according to Agerpres.
The eighth vessel captured after the blockade imposed on Venezuela
The US Department of Defense's post is accompanied by a video showing US soldiers boarding a military helicopter and then abseiling onto the tanker's deck.
When the @DeptofWar says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DoW from defending our Homeland — even in oceans halfway around the world.
Overnight, US military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident in the… pic.twitter.com/kYVAQC5io9
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 9, 2026
The Aquila II is the eighth ship seized by the US since Donald Trump ordered this blockade against Venezuela last December.
This is also the second US seizure outside the region, after an oil tanker with ties to Russia was intercepted in early January in the North Atlantic.
Washington has deployed a major military presence in the Caribbean, allowing it to attack ships accused of drug-trafficking ties, intercept oil tankers under sanctions and capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
But the vessels seized in recent months represent only a small part of the total number of vessels under sanctions and operating in the world, notes AFP.
The number of these vessels under sanctions could rise to 800, Rear Admiral David Barata pointed out during a hearing in the US Congress in early February.
