U.S. forces boarded the Panama-flagged Aquila II oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said on Monday. The Hong Kong-owned tanker is under U.S. sanctions for transporting illicit Russian oil.
The tanker was among 16 tankers that departed Venezuela following Nicolás Maduro’s capture last month.
The Pentagon said the ship operated “in defiance of President [Donald] Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels,” spending months “running dark” with its transponder disabled.
When the @DeptofWar says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DoW from defending our Homeland — even in oceans halfway around the world.
Overnight, U.S. military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident in the… pic.twitter.com/kYVAQC5io9
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 9, 2026
“It ran, and we followed. The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean,” the department’s post on X stated. “The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies the ability to defy American power in the global maritime domain.”
Aquila II was designated as blocked property by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on January 10, 2025, due to its ties to Russia’s energy sector.
According to maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com, the tanker left Venezuela on January 3 under the alias Cape Balder, carrying a partial load of crude oil. Automatic Identification System data show that Aquila II is en route to Singapore.
AQUILA II (9281152) is one of the tankers that departed on the morning Maduro was arrested (2026-01-03). Her zombie alias at the time was “CAPE BALDER” as you can see in a photo we took from the shores of #Venezuela ahead of her departure. She was partially laden. #OOTT #tankers https://t.co/SEhxjbKXF7 pic.twitter.com/5LvPSsbqbH
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) February 9, 2026
The seizure of Aquila II, the eighth tanker seized by the U.S., marks the latest in a series of actions against sanctioned vessels. It comes shortly after the January 20 capture of the Sagitta in the Caribbean.
Previous captures include the Veronica on January 15, the Olina on January 9, the M Sophia and Marinera on January 7, and the Skipper and Centuries in December. Past intercepted vessels have either been under U.S. sanctions or part of a “shadow fleet” of ships that hide their origins to transport oil from major sanctioned producers such as Iran, Russia, or Venezuela.
The seizure of Venezuelan tankers follows Trump’s declaration of a “total and complete blockade” on sanctioned vessels entering or leaving Venezuela, after he accused the regime of using oil revenues to fund drug trafficking and other criminal activities.
