The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week extended a general license that authorizes certain transactions related to Russian financial institutions. General License 13F, which replaced 13E, now expires 12:01 a.m. EST Nov. 8. The license -- which authorizes certain activities involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation -- was set to expire Aug. 17 (see 2305190059).
The U.S., the U.K. and Canada this week sanctioned the former governor of Lebanon’s central bank, Riad Salameh, and others involved in an international corruption scheme. The Treasury Department said Salameh “abused his position of power,” to “enrich himself and his associates” by funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through shell companies to invest in European real estate.
Canada this week announced a new set of sanctions against Belarus for the Alexander Lukashenko regime’s role in the country’s “fraudulent” 2020 presidential election. The designations target nine people and seven entities, including people “complicit in Russia’s ongoing” war against Ukraine, government officials and military manufacturing and technology companies. The U.S. announced new designations against Belarus this week (see 2308090025).
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is seeking public comments on an information collection involving requirements for banks to submit reports of foreign financial accounts. The Bank Secrecy Act requires certain financial institutions to keep records and file reports -- including Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) -- that have a “high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax and regulatory matters or “in the conduct of intelligence or counter-intelligence activities” against international terrorism or money laundering to aid compliance procedures. Comments are due Oct. 10.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned three Sinaloa Cartel members involved in illegally trafficking fentanyl and other “deadly drugs.” The designations target brothers Alfonso Arzate Garcia and Rene Arzate Garcia, both Baja California, Mexico-based cartel leaders. OFAC also sanctioned Rafael Guadalupe Felix Nunez, a “violent” cartel leader in Manzanillo, Mexico. The agency also published a Sinaloa Cartel "operations chart."
The U.S. this week announced a new set of sanctions against Belarus, targeting eight people, five entities and one aircraft with ties to President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. The designations target people and entities that have helped the government evade sanctions or are involved in the government’s “continued civil society repression” or its “complicity” in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued two new general licenses to authorize certain transactions with two of the newly sanctioned entities.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week issued new guidance to help companies, financial institutions, nongovernmental organizations and others understand what humanitarian activities are permitted under its Syria sanctions regulations. The seven-page guidance includes frequently asked questions OFAC said it has been receiving, covering topics related to caps on aid, crowdfunding, providing aid to areas controlled by the Syrian government, processing financial transactions, sending money to people in Syria, digital payment platforms, and exporting food, medicine and other goods to the country. It also stresses that OFAC’s authorizations allow transactions only where aid will benefit the Syrian people and not the government.
Canada this week announced another set of sanctions against Iran, designating seven senior military officials, government officials and people working for “state-directed” companies. The officials and people have ties to entities that supply materials to Iran’s “repressive” national Law Enforcement Command or work for companies that make “lethal combat drones” used by Iran’s armed forces to “destabilize the region” or that are sent to Russia for its war against Ukraine, Canada said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a final rule replacing its Mali Sanctions Regulations, which the agency had published in “abbreviated form” in 2020. The amended regulations, effective Aug. 7, implement a 2019 executive order that authorized sanctions against people and entities involved in human rights abuses and other sanctionable activities in the country. OFAC said it’s providing “a more comprehensive set of regulations, including additional interpretive and definitional guidance, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control added 2,275 parties to its Specially Designated Nationals List last year, more than double the number it added to the list in 2021, the Center for a New American Security said in its Sanctions by the Numbers blog last week. The think tank said sanctions against Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine accounted for 1,698 of the 2,275 total designations. The remaining 577 additions to the SDN List would have been “comparable” to past years, adding that “significant” changes in the number of designations from one year to the next is “usually due to current events rather than changes in the underlying sanctions policy.”