The United States captured another oil tanker in the Indian Ocean that did not comply with the “sanctions” unilaterally imposed by US President Donald Trump against ships of this type used to export oil from Venezuela or Iran, the Pentagon announced on Sunday.
The oil tanker Veronica III was seized by the US army PHOTO: X
the tanker “Veronica III”under the Panamanian flag, “tried to defy the blockade imposed by President Trump, hoping to escape. We tracked him from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, covered the distance and neutralized him.”the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, wrote on the X social network, writes Agerpres.
His message was accompanied by a video that showed US soldiers boarding a helicopter and then disembarking on the ship they had seized.
According to the maritime traffic monitoring website TankerTrackers, the Veronica III left Venezuela on January 3, the same day that a US commando captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The tanker then had a load of approximately 1.9 million barrels of oil on board, the equivalent of Venezuela's production for two days, the same website states.
The tanker Veronica III is on the list “sanctions” American because it is suspected of transporting Iranian oil at least since 2022, states the US Treasury Department on its website.
Less than a week ago, another oil tanker, “Aquila II”which was already being pursued by the US in the Indian Ocean, was seized by the US military using a similar modus operandi. In total, approximately ten such oil tankers subject to the so-called American sanctions have been captured by the USA since the beginning of the year.
But the number of ships subject to US sanctions could be around 800, said US Rear Admiral David Barata during a hearing in the US Congress in early February.
