THE United States military boarded another tanker in the Indian Ocean on Sunday to enforce its illegal sanctions on oil shipments from Venezuela.

The act of piracy took place after by US forces had tracked the vessel, the Veronica III, from the Caribbean Sea as part of an effort to halt allegedly illicit oil shipments connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to put pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Mr Maduro was kidnapped on January 3 during an unprovoked and illegal US military raid on his country.

Some 100 people, including 32 Cubans, were killed during the attack, in which Mr Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores was also kidnapped.

Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean on Saturday night. 

The Defence Department said in a social media post that US forces had boarded the Veronica III, conducting a so-called “right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.

“The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon said. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance and shut it down.”

The Panamanian-flagged vessel is under US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s office of foreign assets control. 

In a statement on Sunday the Panama Maritime Authority said the ship was no longer registered there.

The Trump administration has been seizing tankers across the globe as part of its efforts to seize control of Venezuela’s oil. 

Last week, the US military boarded the Aquila II in the Indian Ocean and the ship is still being held. 

Under maritime law, nations may not stop or seize foreign-flagged vessels on the high seas except in narrowly defined cases, such as piracy, the slave trade and illegal broadcasting. 

This does not include enforcing unilateral sanctions.