VIDEO The US captured another oil tanker in the Indian Ocean. Hegseth: “He tried to defy the blockade imposed by President Trump”
The operation to capture the oil tanker Veronica III Photo: Handout / AFP / Profimedia
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, reports AFP, taken by Agerpres.
The oil tanker “Veronica III”, under the Panamanian flag, “tried to defy the blockade imposed by President Trump, hoping that he would be able to escape. We followed him from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, covered the distance and neutralized him”, wrote the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on the X social network.
His message was accompanied by a video that showed US soldiers boarding a helicopter and then disembarking on the ship they had seized.
We defend the Homeland forward. Distance does not protect you.
Overnight, US forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.
The vessel tried to defy President Trump's… pic.twitter.com/Tran3cLR9g
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 15, 2026
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 Veronica III oil tanker is on the US “sanctions” list because it is suspected of transporting Iranian oil at least since 2022, the US Treasury Department states 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.
