NEW DELHI: Indian coastal authorities reportedly “seized three US-sanctioned tanker ships linked to Iran” earlier this month, a source informed TOI on Monday. The vessel seizures follow the improvement in India-US relations with Washington announcing recently that it would cut import tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 50 per cent.
In a related development, US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea, in an effort to target illicit oil trade connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
‘Shadow fleet’ vessels Stellar Ruby, Asphalt Star and Al Jafzia carrying sanctioned Iranian oil were seized on Feb 6. India’s unprecedented enforcement action took place the same day that Washington and New Delhi unveiled a major bilateral trade framework.
Indian coastal authorities said in a post on X on Feb 6 that they had intercepted the three vessels about 100 nautical miles west of Mumbai after detecting suspicious activity involving a tanker in India’s exclusive economic zone. However, the post was later deleted.
Stellar Ruby, Asphalt Star and Al Jafzia frequently changed their identities to evade action by coastal states, and their owners were based overseas, it was said.
According to Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington DC-based research institute, “All three were previously sanctioned by the US for their ties to Iran. They form part of a 30-tanker fleet managed by Jugwinder Singh Brar, a UAE-based Indian national designated by the Treasury Department in April 2025 for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy. The Stellar Ruby was still flying an Iranian flag at the time of the seizure”.
Importantly, Iran too had seized an oil tanker, MT Valiant Roar, on Dec 8 with 16 Indian crew members on board. Of the 16, eight have been released, but eight are still in Iran’s custody. Their families have been demanding the release of the sailors.
As for US forces boarding another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean, Venezuela has faced US sanctions on its oil for several years and relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in Dec to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro — Maduro was apprehended in Jan during an American military operation.
Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that US forces had boarded Veronica III, conducting “a 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,” it added.
