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Image posted by Department of War connected X
US subject forces connected Sunday boarded different sanctioned lipid tanker successful the Indian Ocean aft tracking it from the Caribbean Sea arsenic portion of efforts to curb illicit lipid shipments linked to Venezuela.According to the defence department, US forces conducted the cognition overnight successful the INDOPACOM country of responsibility. The tanker, identified arsenic Veronica III, was intercepted aft a long-distance pursuit.In a station connected X, the Pentagon shared said, “We support the Homeland forward. Distance does not support you.” The section besides posted a video showing US troops boarding the tanker.
Giving details of the operation, it added, “Overnight, US forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incidental successful the INDOPACOM country of responsibility.”The section further stated that the vas had attempted to evade enforcement measures ordered by President Donald Trump. “The vas tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine —hoping to gaffe away. We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and unopen it down. No different federation has the reach, endurance, oregon volition to bash this.”It besides issued a broader warning, saying, “International waters are not sanctuary.
By land, air, oregon sea, we volition find you and present justice. The Department of War volition contradict illicit actors and their proxies state of question successful the maritime domain.”The Veronica III is simply a Panamanian-flagged vas that is nether US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The enactment comes amid ongoing US sanctions connected Venezuela’s lipid sector.
Venezuela has faced American sanctions for respective years and has relied connected a alleged shadiness fleet of falsely flagged tankers to determination crude lipid into planetary proviso chains.In December, President Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers to summation unit connected then-President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro was aboriginal apprehended successful January during an American subject operation.The Trump medication has been seizing tankers arsenic portion of its broader efforts to instrumentality power of Venezuela’s lipid flows.Last week, US forces boarded different tanker, the Aquila II, successful the Indian Ocean. According to a defence official, the vessel was being held portion US authorities decided its eventual fate.
