US military board sanctioned tanker in Indian Ocean

已複製連結

The US military boarded another sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean Sunday,  after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.

The tanker, which left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as then-President Nicolás Maduro's capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil, was tracked from the Caribbean Sea, according to The Pentagon. 

"The vessel tried to defy President Trump's quarantine - hoping to slip away," the Pentagon said. "We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down."

The Defense Department said US forces boarded the Veronica III overnight, and video posted by the Pentagon on social media showed U.S. troops boarding the tanker.  

Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.