A Russian citizen living in North Georgia, Feliks Medvedev, was sentenced on Oct. 2 to three years and 10 months in prison for conducting an "unlicensed money transmitting business," which saw the transfer of over $150 million in Russian money. Medvedev was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and told to pay a $10,000 fine, DOJ said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned several China-based companies, a person in Iran and others for helping to move weapons, dual-use items or commercial goods in support of the Houthis, the Yemen-based group that the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in January (see 2401170025).
The U.S., U.K. and Australia this week sanctioned a group of people and entities that they said have ties to Russian cybercriminal group Evil Corp., which the Office of Foreign Assets Control designated in 2019 for its international hacking campaigns.
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The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week renewed a Russia-related general license that authorizes certain transactions involving the Russian Federation's Central Bank, Wealth Fund and Ministry of Finance. General License No. 13K, which replaced 13J, now authorizes those transactions, including taxes, fees, or import duties, through 12:01 a.m. EST Jan. 8. The license was set to expire Oct. 9
The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed Swiss national Inga Rettich from its Specially Designated Nationals List, who it originally sanctioned in 2022 for ties to Russian businessman and investor Murat Magomedovich Aliev. OFAC also deleted the vessel Flying Fox, a Cayman Islands-flagged yacht that it sanctioned in 2022 for being owned by Imperial Yachts SARL, a yacht brokerage for Russian elites. The agency didn’t release more information.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week deleted Prominvestbank, a former Ukrainian bank, from its Specially Designated Nationals List. It was forcibly liquidated by the National Bank of Ukraine after Russia took control of the bank following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The bank remains on OFAC's Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List, which includes people and entities that the agency said are operating in certain significant sectors of the Russian economy. OFAC didn’t release more information.
Ljiljana Karadzic asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to set aside its order dismissing her suit challenging her designation on the Office of Foreign Assets Control's Specially Designated Nationals List (see 2408070040). Karadzic claimed the D.C. court failed to address her claim that OFAC made an "unreasonable" decision in "declining to remove her from the list" (Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic v. Lisa Palluconi, D.D.C. # 23-01226).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned an Iranian military official and six employees of an Iranian cybersecurity company for interfering in the 2024 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Russian national Sergey Ivanov and virtual currency exchange Cryptex, which is operated by Ivanov. The move was announced concurrently with enforcement action from various U.S. and international enforcement agencies, including an indictment unsealed against Ivanov and fellow Russian national Timur Shakhmametov.