US forces boarded an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Monday, as Washington enforces a "quarantine" in the Caribbean.
The Aquila II departed Venezuela in early December and appeared to be bound for China, Bloomberg reported.
"The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean," Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said in a post on X. "No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain."
The ship was intercepted while heading towards the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. Reuters reported it was part of a flotilla, most of whose vessels have returned to Venezuela or been seized by the US.
It is one of several tankers to be boarded and seized by the US since December. Washington has said the tankers were carrying oil that is under US sanctions.
The vessel, able to haul about one million barrels of oil, was placed under sanctions for its involvement in the Russian oil trade following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. When US forces boarded, it was carrying about 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude bound for China, schedules from state company PDVSA have shown.
The seizure, the farthest from US shores to occur, is part of an American cordon off the coast of Venezuela as part of Operation Southern Spear, which is aimed at disrupting drug trafficking in the Caribbean. In early January, US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas and took him to New York, where he faces drugs and weapons-related charges.
