U.S. Boards Sanctioned Venezuelan Tanker in Indian Ocean

U.S. military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, marking the latest enforcement action against vessels linked to Venezuela's illicit oil trade. The operation targeted the Bertha, which had evaded detection after fleeing the Caribbean Sea, as part of a broader campaign to uphold American sanctions.

The Pentagon announced the interdiction through U.S. Southern Command, stating that forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the vessel overnight without incident. Officials described the Bertha as operating in defiance of a quarantine on sanctioned tankers imposed by President Donald Trump in December. The ship, flagged to the Cook Islands, attempted to evade pursuit but was tracked across thousands of miles from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. "From the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, we tracked it and stopped it," Southern Command posted on social media. Video footage released by the Pentagon showed helicopters approaching the tanker.

This boarding represents the third such action in the Indian Ocean in recent weeks and underscores an expanding U.S. effort to dismantle Venezuela's shadow fleet of vessels used to...