Picture this: a ship, silently cutting through the waves, attempting a great escape. The U.S. military, however, was watching. In a dramatic international operation, American forces recently intercepted and boarded the tanker Veronica III in the Indian Ocean, concluding a long pursuit that began all the way in the Caribbean Sea.
This isn’t just any ship. The Veronica III was part of a “shadow fleet,” a network of vessels used to smuggle illicit oil connected to Venezuela. For years, Venezuela has faced U.S. sanctions on its oil, leading to these clandestine operations. The plot thickened when former President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine on sanctioned tankers, an effort to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro. After Maduro’s capture in January, several of these tankers, including the Veronica III, tried to flee.
But the U.S. military wasn’t about to let it slip away. “The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon stated. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.” This highlights a determined effort to enforce sanctions and disrupt illegal oil trade.
The Veronica III, though flying a Panamanian flag (since canceled), has a history of involvement with Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil. It reportedly left Venezuela on January 3rd, the very day Maduro was apprehended, carrying nearly 2 million barrels of crude.
This interception isn’t an isolated incident. The U.S. has been actively seizing tankers as part of its broader strategy to control Venezuela’s oil flow and enforce international law. The message is clear: there’s no hiding place on the high seas for those attempting to bypass sanctions.
