The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed designations from three people and one entity earlier this week (see 2105110030) after the agency determined that “circumstances no longer warrant” their inclusion on sanctions lists, a May 13 notice said. The agency removed sanctions from Syrian military official and Brig. Gen. Jami Jami, Netherlands-based entity Staroil B.V. and two other people: Alexander Hollebrand and Paul Van Mazijk. The people and entities were previously listed under OFAC’s Syria sanctions regime.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned seven people and two entities for drug trafficking, the agency said May 12. The sanctions target Jesus Gonzalez Penuelas and Gonzalez Penuelas Drug Trafficking Organization (Gonzalez Penuelas DTO), which is “among the largest sources of raw opium gum and heroin” in northern Mexico. OFAC also sanctioned six people and one entity for their ties to Gonzalez Penuelas DTO: Ignacio and Wilfrido Gonzalez Penuelas, Efrain Mendivil Figueroa, Adelmo Nunez Molina, and Raul and Juana Payan Meraz, and construction company City Plaza, Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on May 11 designated seven people connected to Hezbollah and its financial firm Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH). The sanctions target Ibrahim Ali Daher, the chief of Hezbollah’s Central Finance Unit, and AQAH officials Ahmad Mohamad Yazbeck, Abbas Hassan Gharib, Wahid Mahmud Subayti, Mostafa Habib Harb, Ezzat Youssef Akar and Hasan Chehadeh Othman.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for May 3-7 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction for Chinese big data processing technology company Luokung Technology Corp., temporarily blocking the company's designation as a Chinese military company. Judge Rudolph Contreras issued the injunction in a May 5 ruling, finding it likely Luokung would prevail in its case against the designation. The publicly traded Chinese tech giant claims that the Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC) designation issued by the Department of Defense was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, was arbitrary and capricious, and that the evidence in hand was not substantial enough to support a finding of state control over the company.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for April 26-30 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Forwarders are seeing a rise in maximum penalties issued by CBP for violations surrounding ocean shipments that occurred over a year ago, National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America officials said. Joe Brogan, the chair of NCBFAA’s export compliance subcommittee, said CBP officers are increasingly digging up old violations where forwarders submitted incorrect transportation-related information, such as the date of export or the port of export, and have levied penalties higher than $14,000 for a “single occurrence.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control moved its Non-Specially Designated Nationals Communist Chinese Military Companies (NS-CCMC) List from a temporary PDF to a “standard OFAC list file format,” the agency said April 30. The list data will now be included in the agency’s “Non-SDN Consolidated Data Files” for machine processing, and “human-readable versions” will be available on a dedicated landing page. OFAC stressed that the change is “only an administrative, technical action.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 30 deleted five entries from its Specially Designated Nationals List. The entries were listed with addresses in Iraq. OFAC didn’t immediately provide more information.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a Texas money transfer company more than $34,000 for committing over 350 sanctions violations, OFAC said April 29. The company, MoneyGram Payment Systems, voluntarily disclosed the violations in 2017 (see 2011040041) after it provided services to blocked people in U.S. prisons and processed transactions on behalf of a sanctioned person and people doing business in Syria. OFAC said MoneyGram “had reason to know” the transactions “may” have exposed them to sanctions but followed through with them because of screening failures or “based on an erroneous misunderstanding” of its compliance obligations.