The Department of War said Sunday that interdicted a vessel in the Indo-Pacific after it tried to avoid a quarantine order put in place by the Trump administration.
In a statement on X, the War Department noted the Veronica III was boarded without any issues while it was working in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s area of responsibility.
“The vessel sought to defy — hoping to get away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed in, and stopped it. No other country has the reach, stamina, or resolve to do this,” the government account wrote.
“International waters are not a safe haven. By land, air, or sea, we will locate you and deliver justice,” it added. “The Department of War will block illicit actors and their proxies from moving freely in the maritime domain.”
The Veronica III is the latest in a series of high-profile maritime actions by the U.S. military aimed at enforcing sanctions and cutting down on Venezuelan oil exports.
President announced a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela in mid-December, as Washington expanded its naval presence in the Caribbean to pressure now-former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
, the Veronica III is on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals sanctions list.
The tanker—a large crude oil carrier built in 2006 and registered under the Panamanian flag—has been connected to shipping hundreds of thousands of metric tons of sanctioned Iranian oil and is linked to a Chinese ship-management company that has also been sanctioned.
OpenSanctions points out that the ship previously sailed under different names and flags as part of efforts to dodge sanctions and hide its activities at sea.
The Veronica III was one of the vessels sanctioned by Treasury in December 2024 as part of a broader effort targeting 35 other entities and tankers involved in transporting illegal Iranian oil to foreign markets.