The Pentagon said on Monday that it captured the tanker as part of a campaign by US President Donald Trump to cut off Venezuela’s oil exports, which critics have slammed as “theft” and international piracy. AlJazeera reported.
The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It ran, and we followed,” the Pentagon said.
It added that US forces tracked the vessel from the Caribbean Sea to the Indian Ocean.
“No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain,” the Pentagon said, sharing footage of heavily armed US soldiers raiding the vessel from a helicopter.
“By land, air, or sea, our Armed Forces will find you and deliver justice. You will run out of fuel long before you will outrun us.”
The Panama-flagged Aquila II had left Venezuelan waters in early January and was carrying 700,000 barrels of crude oil, the Reuters news agency reported, citing records from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.
The US started seizing Venezuelan oil ships in December before abducting the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, last month.
