U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Thursday announced that U.S. forces used Hellfire missiles to disable a tanker called M/T Jalveer as it attempted to violate the blockade on Iran.
It was the third time in a week that American forces have struck an Indian-crewed tanker that tried to penetrate the blockade line.
CENTCOM said the Jalveer was carrying banned Iranian oil when it tried to sail through the Gulf of Oman. When the ship failed to comply with orders from the blockade force, an American aircraft “fired two Hellfire missiles into the ship’s engine room.”
“Earlier this week, U.S. aircraft disabled Palau-flagged vessels M/T Marivex and M/T Settebello on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Marivex violated the blockade by attempting to sail to an Iranian port and Settebello attempted to transport Iranian oil,” the statement on Thursday noted.
“CENTCOM forces have disabled nine non-compliant vessels, redirected 135 ships that complied, and allowed 42 vessels supporting humanitarian aid to pass since initiating the blockade on April 13,” the statement said.
The Marivex, a Palau-flagged tanker with 24 Indian sailors aboard, made four distinct attempts to violate the blockade and refused orders to turn back on Monday.
“An F/A-18 Super Hornet from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) fired a precision munition into the ship’s engineering and steering spaces after the crew failed to comply with directions from U.S. forces,” CENTCOM said in its statement on the incident.
The crew of the Marivex sent a distress call to Indian maritime unions after the strike, saying “we have a fire on board and the vessel is sinking.”
“U.S. Navy attack, the missile on our engine room. We have hole at the bottom. We have fire onboard, please help. Please help, please help,” the distress call said.
The Marivex is managed by a Panama-based firm called Arihant Shipping, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2025 for participating in Iran’s “shadow fleet” of sanctions-evading ships.
The Marivex was named M/T Arihant at the time, and was named in the OFAC sanctions for transporting “hundreds of thousands of barrels of Iranian fuel oil and bitumen within the Persian Gulf since July 2025.”
All 24 crew members were safely rescued from the Marivex, and were scheduled to be repatriated to India from Oman on Friday, according to the Indian Foreign Ministry.
The day after the Marivex was disabled, the Palau-flagged Settebello attempted to violate the blockade with a cargo of Iranian oil on board. CENTCOM said a U.S. aircraft “fired precision munitions into the ship’s engine room after the crew repeatedly failed to comply with directions from American forces.”
The Settebello strike reportedly killed three of the 24 Indian crew members on board, possibly due to the fire that broke out on board, although the exact circumstances of their deaths were not immediately made public.
The Settebello is owned by two shipping companies based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and was previously named M/T Hana. Under that name, it was stripped of its shipping classification in 2021 for failing to comply with maritime standards.
The ship kept operating and was detained at the Russian port of Novorosslisk in 2022 after inspectors discover fire, navigation, and health safety violations.
The ship resumed sailing and was again detained by Chinese officials at the port of Lianyungang for safety violations in February 2026.
The company that manages the Settebello, IOS Marine, claimed on Thursday that the ship did not receive instructions from the U.S. Navy before it was fired upon, and denied that it was transporting Iranian oil. The company further complained that attacking the ship could have caused an environmental disaster by spilling the oil that it ostensibly did not get from Iran.
“To the best of our knowledge and based on information available to us, no warning call, message, or communication was ever successfully established with the vessel prior to the actions taken against it,” IOS Marine said.
Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) condemned the strike on the Settebello, saying “the protection of seafarers is a shared responsibility that must remain paramount.”
“I strongly condemn any act from any party that endangers the lives of seafarers and the safety of international shipping. This is simply unacceptable,” he said.
The Indian Foreign Ministry demanded “these attacks must cease and end” on Friday after summoning the charge d’affaires from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi to convey its “deepest concerns.”
“We also call for dialogue and diplomacy so that we can have an early return to peace and stability in the region,” foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.
The BBC on Friday spoke to family members of Aditya Sharma, one of the Indian crew who died aboard the Settebello, and they “questioned why the captain of the tanker chose to go near the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Who is responsible for the deaths? The circumstances that led to the deaths must be investigated,” said Aditya’s father, Rajesh Sharma.