U.S. military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean in what the Pentagon described as a coordinated effort to disrupt illicit Venezuelan oil shipments tied to the regime of former dictator Nicolás Maduro.

According to the Department of War, U.S. forces conducted a “right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding” of the tanker Veronica III overnight Saturday into Sunday, after the vessel attempted to evade a U.S.-imposed quarantine on sanctioned ships.

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

Video released by the Pentagon showed U.S. troops boarding the tanker without resistance.

We defend the Homeland forward. Distance does not protect you.

Overnight, U.S. forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility.

The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s… pic.twitter.com/Tran3cLR9g

— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 15, 2026

The Veronica III is a crude oil tanker that has previously been linked to Venezuela’s oil exports and is listed under U.S. sanctions related to Iran by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The boarding is the latest move in the Trump administration’s broader effort to dismantle what U.S. officials have described as Venezuela’s “shadow fleet,” a network of falsely flagged or covertly operated tankers used to move sanctioned crude into global markets.

​​The boarding came as the Department of War confirmed Monday that U.S. forces had intercepted another sanctioned tanker, the Aquila II, which like the Veronica III, had fled the Venezuelan coast following the January operation that removed Maduro from power.

Both tankers falsely flew Panamanian flags and are under U.S. sanctions tied to illicit oil shipments. Both had spent much of the past year “running dark,” a common smuggling tactic in which ships disable their tracking transponders to evade detection.

Speaking Monday during a stop at Maine Bath Iron Works as part of his “Arsenal of Freedom Tour,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the administration intends to pursue every tanker that attempted to escape U.S. enforcement.

“The only guidance I gave to my military commanders is none of those are getting away,” Hegseth told shipyard workers. “I don’t care if we’ve got to go around the globe to get them — we’re going to get them.”

U.S. officials say at least 16 tankers fled Venezuelan waters in the aftermath of the January raid, prompting a global tracking effort that has now stretched from the Caribbean into the Indian Ocean. The Trump administration has now seized seven tankers since the January 3 operation. This is part of a broader push to dismantle Venezuela’s shadow oil fleet and reassert control over the country’s petroleum exports.

Anonymous Naval officials confirmed to The Guardian that multiple U.S. vessels, including guided-missile destroyers and a mobile sea base, were operating in the Indian Ocean, underscoring the administration’s willingness to enforce sanctions far beyond the Western Hemisphere.

Venezuela’s oil sector has been under heavy U.S. sanctions for years, forcing the Maduro regime to rely on clandestine shipping routes and foreign intermediaries to sustain revenue. In December, President Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned Venezuelan tankers as part of an escalating pressure campaign, weeks before Maduro was apprehended during a U.S. military operation in January.

The Pentagon did not clarify whether the Veronica III has been formally seized or placed under U.S. control, stating only that the boarding was conducted successfully and without incident. 

“International waters are not sanctuary,” the Department of War said in its statement. “By land, air, or sea, we will find you and deliver justice.”

While the administration has offered limited public detail on the legal mechanisms governing the seizures, officials have framed the campaign as a necessary extension of sanctions enforcement against hostile regimes and their economic lifelines.

The interception of the Veronica III signals that, even as Maduro waits to stand trial, U.S. forces will continue to pursue the remnants of Venezuela’s illicit oil trade, and that geography alone will not shield sanctioned actors from American reach.

An Irishman who has become the center of the Left’s campaign against the Trump administration’s deportations reportedly “abandoned” his twin daughters back in Ireland, where he also apparently faces drug charges.

The twin daughters of Irish illegal immigrant Séamus Culleton made the shocking claim in a recent interview with the Irish Daily Mail and are now advocating for his deportation from the United States.

Culleton has become the center of the immigration debate in the United States after he called in to RTE radio to decry his conditions in ICE detention as “torture,” adding: “I just don’t know how much more I can take.”

His 18-year-old twin daughters, Melissa and Heather Morrissey, told the Irish Daily Mail Sunday that Culleton “is not the man he seems” and that his claims of doing “no wrong” aren’t true since he reportedly has drug charges awaiting him in Ireland.

“I think he should come back here and he should get arrested,” Heather said.

The girls said Culleton left them in the dust to build a new life in the United States without ever giving “a penny” to their mother to support them.

In 2008, Culleton was charged with drug possession with intent for sale or supply, drug possession for personal consumption and obstructing authorities, the Irish Daily Mail recently reported.

Culleton failed to appear in court and he fled the area before a warrant could be issued, according to the report.

He appeared in the same court in April 2008 for being “extremely drunk” in public, the paper reported.

“He was making himself out to be a saint like he’s done nothing wrong, like he knows that there are warrants here for his arrest and that was going to come out,” Heather said.

“How did he not know that? He went to the news. People [can] go and find this. … It’s public knowledge.”

In response to Culleton’s recent radio call-in, Heather said she felt “shocked.”

“I am sorry now but I just think it’s so funny how he can ring the news and Tiffany [Culleton’s wife] and his sister but couldn’t ring me or my sister,” Heather said. “He rang me the first day he got locked up because I asked his sister to ask him to ring me. I had to ask him to ring me.”

“He told me that he got detained by ICE … he doesn’t know when he’s going to get out. That was about it. I haven’t heard from him since then,” she added.

Heather also said she asked Culleton’s sister to inform him that Melissa was pregnant, but “my sister hasn’t heard from him,” she said.

“I feel that we were born and he just up and left. He did abandon us. That’s what he did,” Heather said.

The twins were told that Culleton was their father when they were 12 years old, Heather said.

They were able to text him since they didn’t receive a reply to their Facebook messages.

“We then texted him and basically said, ‘You never reached out, and we never heard from you’ and all that kind of stuff,” Heather said.

She continued: “He just said that he thought we wouldn’t want to hear from him and all that kind of just silly stuff, really. And then we got afraid, in case our mom would see it on our phone. So we just blocked him.”

When they were about 15 or 16, the twins tried again to reach Culleton, Heather said.

“He’d be texting on and off, he’d be texting, ‘how are you’ and all this. He asked us if we were coming to see him and then I asked him if he was going to come over to see us instead, instead of us going all the way over there, and he said ‘no’ and that he was never coming back here,” she said.

Culleton “gave us €1,000 each” for their 18th birthday last year, Melissa said, adding that it was “only because we contacted him first and asked for a birthday present as a joke.”

The girls were outraged when they saw Culleton’s latest fundraising campaign, which has raised more than $30,000 for his legal fees, they said.

They also decried statements from Culleton’s wife, Tiffany Smyth, an American citizen, who said she wanted her husband home with her and her dogs, which she referred to as her “babies.”

“They’re dogs. I understand people love animals and all that, but he has children. His dogs aren’t his children,” Heather said.

🚨 In today’s Irish Mail on Sunday, we tracked down the estranged daughter’s of #ICE detainee Seamus Culleton.
They say he abandoned them as babies, never gave their mother a cent and should come home to face drugs charges. pic.twitter.com/I3u9vJRIt4

— Garreth MacNamee (@garmacnamee) February 15, 2026

ICE arrested Culleton on Sept. 9, a day before an immigration judge issued him a final deportation order, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

He entered the United States in 2009 under a visa waiver program that allowed him to stay for a period of 90 days. Culleton, however, never left.

Federal authorities “offered” Culleton “the chance to instantly be removed to Ireland,” but instead he “chose to stay in ICE custody,” DHS said.

“Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to use the CBP Home app to take control of their departure. The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X of Culleton’s case.

“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,” she added.