U.S. military forces have boarded a third sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Tuesday, in an effort to curb illicit oil linked to Venezuela.

U.S. Southern Command said in a post on X that American forces boarded the tanker Bertha overnight, carrying out a “right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding” operation. According to the statement, the vessel had been operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s quarantine on sanctioned ships in the Caribbean and attempted to evade monitoring.

Officials said the tanker was tracked across oceans before being intercepted in the Indian Ocean.

Venezuela has faced U.S. sanctions on its oil sector for years and has reportedly relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to move crude into global supply chains. Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December as part of efforts to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro, who was apprehended in January during a U.S. military operation.

The Bertha is registered under the Cook Islands flag and is also listed under U.S. sanctions related to Iran, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Pentagon-released video showed U.S. military helicopters approaching the tanker during the operation. However, the Pentagon did not confirm whether the vessel was formally seized or placed under U.S. control.

The latest boarding is part of broader U.S. efforts to disrupt illicit oil shipments connected to Venezuela’s sanctioned network.