US officials said the ship - named Aquila II - was operating in defiance of a US "quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean".

"It ran, and we followed", the department said on social media, adding that "by land, air, or sea, our Armed Forces will find you and deliver justice".

Forces boarded and inspected the ship, officials said. At least seven oil tankers have been seized by the US since last year, as the Trump administration moves to control the supply of Venezuelan oil, the country's main economic resource.

The US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his home in Caracas during a raid in December and implemented a blockade of oil shipments.

"When the (defence department) says quarantine, we mean it," the department wrote on X. Nothing will stop the US military from enforcement, "even in oceans halfway around the world".

A video that accompanied the social media post showed US servicemembers in military fatigue uniforms boarding the ship from a helicopter that hovered above.

The defence department said it "tracked and hunted" the Aquila II from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away.

The US blockade has sharply curtailed Venezuelan oil exports, with only ships associated with Chevron and bound for the US operating as usual.

Loadings fell roughly in half in January to about 400,000 barrels per day, Matt Smith, head of US analysis at Kpler, told the BBC last month.

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