The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a more than $220,000 settlement with Spain-based Hotelbeds USA for helping more than 700 people with Cuba-related travel services that violated the Cuba Assets Control Regulations, OFAC said in a June 13 enforcement notice.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Iraq-based South Wealth Resources Company (SWRC), the “financial conduit” for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps-Qods Force, Treasury said in a June 12 press release. Treasury said SWRC has trafficked “hundreds of millions of dollars” in weapons to Iraqi militias. OFAC also sanctioned two SWRC associates, Makki Kazim ‘Abd Al Hamid Al Asadi and Mohammed Hussein Salih Al Hasani, for facilitating the IRGC’s access to Iraq’s financial system to evade U.S. sanctions. SWRC and its two associates are being sanctioned as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, the press release said.
The State Department is upholding a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation for Shining Path, a narcotics-trafficking group based in Peru, State said in a notice scheduled to be published June 12 in the Federal Register. Circumstances surrounding the group’s designation have not changed and there is no reason to revoke the designation, the notice said. Shining Path was sanctioned in 2015 for operating as a terrorist group committed to the overthrow of Peru’s government, OFAC said in a press release at the time.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign assets Control sanctioned 16 people and entities, including Syrian oligarch Samer Foz, to cut off “critical supplies and financiers” for Syria's “luxury reconstruction and investment efforts," Treasury said in a June 11 press release. Treasury said Foz has “been profiting heavily front reconstruction efforts” in Syria by building luxury developments on land seized by Syria.
The U.S. should impose harsher sanctions on the Nicaraguan government, the Daniel Ortega regime and the country’s business leaders or risk the country devolving into a similar situation the U.S. faces with Venezuela, panelists told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security and Trade on June 11.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), Iran’s “largest and most profitable petrochemical holding group,” as well as 39 of its subsidiaries, Treasury said in a June 7 press release. PGPIC was sanctioned for funding Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which Treasury said is the “engineering conglomerate” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a $400,000 settlement agreement with Western Union Financial Services after OFAC said Western Union committed nearly 5,000 violations of the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, OFAC said in a June 7 notice. Western Union, headquartered in Colorado, processed transactions that involved the Kairaba Shopping Center (KSC) in The Gambia, a Specially Designated National, for more than four years after the entity was sanctioned by OFAC, the notice said. After Western Union discovered KSC was sanctioned, OFAC said, it “failed to deactivate” the entity’s access to Western Union “due to its mistaken belief that” the entity was “already inactive.” Western Union processed transactions worth about $ 1.275 million “to third-party, non-designated beneficiaries who chose to collect their remittances at KSC,” the notice said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control amended three Venezuela-related general licenses and issued frequently asked questions for guidance, OFAC said in a June 6 notice. OFAC amended General License 7A, which authorizes certain transactions related to PDV Holding, Inc. and CITGO Holding, Inc; General License 8, which authorizes certain transactions involving Petroleos de Venezuela for entities operating in Venezuela; and General License 13, which authorizes certain transactions involving Nynas AB. The addition to OFAC’s FAQs concerns the export and re-export of “diluents” to Venezuela. Diluents such as crude oil and naphtha "play a key role in the transportation and exportation of Venezuelan petroleum," which is a major revenue source for the regime of Nicolas Maduro, which the U.S. seeks to suppress.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control submitted to Congress its annual report on assets held in the U.S. by terrorism-supporting countries and agencies. The report, released May 29, describes U.S. sanctions regimes and details the number of designated individuals, entities and countries designated by each regime as of Dec. 31, 2018. It also includes a list of blocked funds in the U.S. associated with the Specially Designated Global Terrorists, Specially Designated Terrorists and Foreign Terrorist Organization programs, as well as a similar list of blocked funds associated with three state sponsors of terrorism: Iran, Syria and North Korea.
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