US military forces have boarded a sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean, having tracked the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an operation targeting illicit oil linked to Venezuela, the Pentagon announced on Sunday.
Venezuela has been subject to US oil sanctions for several years, leading to its reliance on a 'shadow fleet' of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to exert pressure on then-President Nicolás Maduro, who was later apprehended in January during an American military operation.
