US military boards third oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from Caribbean

WASHINGTON– U.S. military forces boarded a third sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil linked to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The U.S. Southern Command said in a message on

“The vessel was operating in defiance of the quarantine established by President Trump for sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean and attempted to evade it,” the message said. “From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we followed and arrested him. »

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

The Bertha is a Cook Islands-flagged vessel and is subject to U.S. sanctions related to Iran, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control website.

Video released by the Pentagon shows US military helicopters flying towards the tanker.

Trump’s Republican administration has seized tankers as part of its broader effort to take control of Venezuelan oil. The Pentagon message did not specify whether the Bertha had been officially seized and placed under American control.

Maduro was brought to the United States to face charges of collaborating with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States and has pleaded not guilty.