Washington, Feb 15 (EFE).- The US War Department announced this Sunday that it intercepted another tanker in the Indian Ocean that, according to Washington, was violating the blockade imposed on crude oil operations in the Caribbean related to Venezuela and Cuba and tried to escape the US cordon. "During the night, US forces carried out a right of visit, maritime interdiction, and boarding of the Veronica III without incident in the area of responsibility of Indopacom (Indo-Pacific Command)", the Pentagon revealed in a message on X accompanied by a video of the operation. According to the US Armed Forces, "the vessel attempted to challenge the quarantine ordered by the president (US Donald Trump), with the hope of sneaking through". "We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and neutralized it," the statement read. US intercepts another tanker in the Indian Ocean for violating its crude oil blockade in the Caribbean. These limitations include crude oil shipments to Cuba. Trump also ordered tariffs on countries that send oil to the Caribbean nation, a pressure mechanism that is strangling the island. The stated objective is to prevent Venezuelan oil from being sold outside channels authorized by Washington and to cut off income to networks considered allies of Russia, Iran, or Cuba itself. "The War Department will deny illicit actors and their frontmen the freedom of movement in the maritime domain," the US Armed Forces insisted today in their message. Photo EFE The entry US. No other nation has the reach, the endurance, or the will to do something like that. By land, sea, or air, we will find you and deliver justice," the addendum states. The Veronica III, identified as a Panamanian-flagged vessel by the Marine Traffic tracking site, is one of around 16 sanctioned tankers that would have attempted to evade the US blockade, according to The New York Times, including the Aquila II, also intercepted by Washington in the Indian Ocean on February 9. According to the Times, published in early January, to try to escape US reach, the Veronica III would have assumed the name 'DS Vector' and falsified its coordinates to pretend it was located off the coast of Nigeria. Since December 2025, the United States has been applying a maritime 'quarantine' to sanctioned tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, as part of the so-called Operation Southern Lance, in which at least eight vessels have already been boarded or seized. International waters are not a sanctuary.
