U.S. military forces boarded the sanctioned oil tanker Aquila II in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean, U.S. officials said Monday, in the latest enforcement action tied to Washington’s “quarantine” of sanctioned vessels operating to or from Venezuela.
On Monday, U.S. military officials said American forces tracked and boarded the oil tanker Aquila II in the Indian Ocean after pursuing it from the Caribbean. In a social media post, the Pentagon said the boarding was conducted “without incident” as forces carried out a “right-of-visit” maritime interdiction, and it released video showing troops descending from a helicopter onto the ship.
U.S. officials said the operation was tied to President Donald Trump’s declared “quarantine” of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. The Pentagon wrote on X that the Aquila II was “operating in defiance” of that quarantine and that U.S. forces “tracked and hunted” the ship from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean.
The Aquila II is a Panama-flagged tanker that has been under U.S. sanctions for involvement in illicit Russian oil shipments, according to reporting by the Associated Press and other outlets citing ship-tracking information. Whether the ship was carrying Venezuelan crude at the time of the boarding has been described differently across reports. Reuters has reported—citing PDVSA shipping schedules—that the tanker left Venezuelan waters in early January carrying roughly 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude bound for China. However, the Associated Press reported that ship-transmitted data on Monday indicated the vessel was not then laden with crude.
The U.S. military did not publicly announce a formal seizure in its initial statement. The Associated Press reported that the ship was in U.S. custody pending a final determination, while other coverage has described the action as a seizure.
The boarding is the latest in a series of U.S. interdictions connected to the Trump administration’s stepped-up maritime pressure campaign following the January 3 capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, according to the Associated Press. U.S. officials and news reports have said the United States previously seized at least seven other tankers linked to Venezuela under the quarantine.
Separately, Reuters reported in January that the Trump administration sought court warrants to seize dozens more vessels involved in the Venezuelan crude trade. Trump has also said U.S. oil companies would invest tens of billions of dollars to help rebuild Venezuela’s oil fields, and U.S. officials have argued that proceeds from oil tied to interdicted shipments could be used to support Venezuela’s recovery.
