The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week expanded its Myanmar sanctions regime to cover the country’s jet fuel sector and sanctioned people and companies involved in procuring and distributing jet fuel to Myanmar’s military regime.
The U.S. this week sanctioned two Syria-based armed militias and three of their leaders for their involvement in “gross” human rights violations against people living in northern Syria’s Afrin region. The Office of Foreign Assets Control also sanctioned an auto sales company owned by one of the leaders.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned four people involved in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. OFAC said Alexey Alexandrovich Alexandrov, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Ivan Vladimirovich Osipov and Vladimir Alexandrovich Panyaev are Russian Federal Security Service operatives who were reported to be involved in the attack on Navalny. All four were previously sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act of 2012 for their ties to “extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to expose illegal activity carried out” by Russia, the agency said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a Lebanon-based organization and its leader for providing support for Hezbollah’s operations while acting under the guise of an environmental organization. The entity, Green Without Borders, was created in 2013 to protect Lebanon’s “natural environment” but is a “cover” for Hezbollah’s activities in southern Lebanon along the Blue Line, where Green Without Borders has outposts that are staffed by Hezbollah officials and underground warehouses and munitions storage tunnels that allow Hezbollah members to train. The agency also sanctioned Zuhair Subhi Nahla, the leader of Green Without Borders.
American building materials supplier Construction Specialties Inc. (CS) reached a $660,594 settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control this week for allegedly violating sanctions against Iran. OFAC said the company’s United Arab Emirates subsidiary, Construction Specialties Middle East (CSME), illegally reexported more than $1 million worth of construction materials to Iran and falsified trade documents to hide their destination.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control delayed the retirement of its “PIP, DEL, and SDALL.ZIP sanctions list file formats” until on or about Sept. 18, the agency said in a notice this week. OFAC was scheduled to retire the formats this month (see 2307070012). The notice includes a complete list of files that the agency will retire. The Sanctions List Search tool “will not be affected by these changes."
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week updated two entries on its Specially Designated Nationals List. The changes update identifying information for Singapore-based Unicious Energy, which was sanctioned in February for helping sanctioned company Triliance Petrochemical sell Iranian petroleum products, and Behnam Shahriyari, an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The U.S. removed sanctions from two former board members of a Russian state-owned bank after both argued they didn’t meet the criteria for placement on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List. The sanctions removals, made by the Office of Foreign Assets Control late last month, came after Russian nationals Elena Titova and Andrey Golikov, in separate complaints, sued the U.S. government over their designations, accusing it of sanctioning them on “no factual basis” and “unnecessarily” delaying delisting decisions.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week issued a new set of Russia sanctions, designating four members of Russia’s “financial elite” and a Russian business association. The sanctions target Petr Olegovich Aven, Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, German Borisovich Khan and Alexey Viktorovich Kuzmichev, along with the Russian Association of Employers the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a Russian technology industry organization.
After the administration reported on its strategy to disrupt narcotics trafficking linked to the Syrian regime, including its sanctions against Samer Kamal al-Assad and Khalid Qaddour, a key drug producer and facilitator, respectively, of captagon production in Syria, two members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill directing the administration to impose sanctions on more Syrian players in the production and sale of the amphetamine-like stimulant.