U.S. military forces have boarded a crude oil tanker “without incident” in the Indian Ocean after pursuing the vessel from the Caribbean, the Pentagon has confirmed.
The Department of War (DOW) is accusing the ship of breaching a U.S.-enforced quarantine.
In a post on X, the DOW said that “military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II” in the Indian Ocean after tracking it in response to the Trump administration’s “established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”
“It ran, and we followed,” the department stated.
“The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean.
“No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain.”
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 9, 2026
After capturing former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a military raid last month in Caracas, Venezuela, the United States escalated a blockade on vessels traveling to and from the South American country.
Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world.
The Pentagon’s statement, reposted by War Secretary Pete Hegseth on X, did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
The U.S. military also did not say why it boarded the ship, which it has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
The tanker, Aquila II, flying a Panama flag, was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in January, which linked the vessel to Russia’s energy sector.
Since the ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on January 3, the Trump administration has signaled it wants to control the production, refining, and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products.
The administration has also sought to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict U.S. economic sanctions and relies heavily on shipments from allies such as Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela.
On Jan. 29, the Treasury Department confirmed it issued a general license allowing for the “exportation, reexportation, sale, resale, supply, storage, marketing, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan origin oil, including the refining of such oil” by certain companies, subject to restrictions.
Those restrictions include “any transaction involving a person located in or organized under the laws of the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, or any entity that is owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by or in a joint venture with such persons.”
Beyond measures targeting Venezuela, the Trump administration last week imposed a new round of sanctions on a shadow fleet of tankers accused of transporting Iranian oil amid U.S.–Iran talks in Oman.
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