The Office of Foreign Assets Control officially retired its RSS feed Jan. 31, the agency said in a notice this week (see 2411220009). The agency continues to provide updates about recent sanctions by email, and users can sign up for those updates. Technical support questions should be sent to O_F_A_C@treasury.gov.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned a network of people, companies and ships that it said are moving millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil to China on behalf of the Iranian military and a sanctioned front company, Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars (see 2311290034).
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill Jan. 31 that would direct the State Department to designate four Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
A group of 13 House Democrats urged the Trump administration Jan. 31 not to ease sanctions on Venezuela as part of a deal to return Venezuelans living in the U.S. to their home country.
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network this week rescinded two alerts that warned banks about transactions that may have been funding “Israeli extremist settler violence” in violation of U.S. sanctions (see 2402010053). The alerts had asked banks and other financial institutions to submit suspicious activity reports to FinCEN if they believed a transaction may have been tied to West Bank violence. The move came days after the Office of Foreign Assets Control, under the direction of President Donald Trump, officially removed sanctions from all people and entities designated under a Biden-era sanctions authority that had targeted violent Israeli settlers and organizations in the region (see 2501240011).
Patrick Dierfield, a former senior sanctions compliance manager with cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin, is joining the Office of Foreign Assets Control as a sanctions regulations adviser, he announced on LinkedIn. Dierfield joined OFAC this month.
The auction process for ships to pass through the Panama Canal when the water is low, and the fact that a Hong Kong company owns ports by the entrance and exit of the Panama Canal were the focuses of a Senate hearing on the canal -- but the way Iranian ships used Panama to evade sanctions also came up.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Jan. 24 officially removed sanctions from all people and entities designated under a sanctions authority that had targeted violent Israeli settlers and organizations in the West Bank (see 2501210023). OFAC “removed the West Bank-Related Sanctions program from its website and removed all persons designated under” the West Bank-related executive order 14115, signed by President Joe Biden last year (see 2402010053), from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. “All property and interests in property blocked under E.O. 14115 are unblocked,” OFAC said.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.