By Shelby Holliday

U.S. forces chased down an oil tanker fleeing the quarantine around Venezuela all the way to the Indian Ocean, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday, a weekslong pursuit that ended in the ship's capture.

The tanker, the Aquila II, is sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K. for its involvement in transporting Russian oil. It is the eighth ship seized by U.S. forces since the Trump administration began taking direct action against illicit oil shipments in the Caribbean.

Several vessels have fled the region after the U.S. in early January captured Nicolás Maduro, then Venezuela's president, according to shipping-data firm Lloyd's List Intelligence.

"It ran, and we followed," Hegseth said on social media. "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."

A video attached to the post shows U.S. troops approaching the tanker in a helicopter and fast-roping onto the deck. Hegseth said the boarding took place without incident.

The Aquila II loaded nearly 1 million barrels of merey crude at Venezuela's Jose terminal on Dec. 6, according Lloyd's. It was broadcasting false location data and trying to conceal its cargo, the data firm said, a maneuver typical of vessels belonging to the so-called shadow fleet of tankers that ferry illicit oil around the globe.

It is the furthest afield the U.S. is known to have pursued and interdicted a tanker operating under sanctions and evading the American quasi blockade of Venezuela. In early January, U.S. troops forcibly boarded a Russia-linked oil tanker south of Iceland after a two-week pursuit by the U.S. Coast Guard from the Caribbean.

The U.S. recently eased some oil sanctions on Venezuela, but it has moved to block oil shipments to Cuba and continues to enforce the quarantine. The Navy is maintaining a fleet of warships in the Caribbean to tackle illicit activity, according to U.S. Southern Command.

Write to Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2026 10:24 ET (15:24 GMT)

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