The US had boarded another oil tanker in the Indian Ocean last week, after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea.

12:30, Tue, Feb 24, 2026 Updated: 12:50, Tue, Feb 24, 2026

US forces board vessel in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.

The US military has announced its forces have boarded yet another santioned oil tanker, the Bertha. Under the jurisdiction of the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), forces conducted an overnight "right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding" of the vessel. 

The Department of War said the Bertha was "operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean". It wrote on X: "From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we tracked it and stopped it. No other nation has the global reach, endurance, or will to enforce sanctions at this distance.

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Three boats ran and now all three have been captured.

Overnight, U.S. forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Bertha without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility. The vessel was operating in defiance of President Trump’s… pic.twitter.com/YoHlb9v54p

— Department of War ???????????? (@DeptofWar) February 24, 2026

"International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned actors. By land, air, or sea, our forces will find you and deliver justice. The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain."

At least eight oil tankers have been seized by the US since last year, amid the president's plan to crack down on the supply of Venezuelan oil. 

In December, Trump ordered a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving the South American country. This caused its oil exports to drop sharply as only ships associated with Chevron and bound for the US could operate as normal.

Experts said in January that loadings had fallen by around 50% to 400,000 barrels per day. 

The latest interception comes just one week after the US military boarded the Panamanian-flagged Veronica III in the Indian Ocean over suspicions it was helping Venezuela avoid the sanctions.

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The Pentagon also called this a "a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding", but did not say whether the ship had been seized and prevented from carrying on its journey. 

It said: "The vessel tried to defy President Trump's quarantine - hoping to slip away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down."

The Veronica III left Venezuela on January 3 - the same day President Nicholas Maduro was captured by US forces.

It was carrying 1.9 million barrels of crude oil and is believed to have been transporting Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil since 2023, monitoring group TankerTrackers said.