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.
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The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned Yin Kecheng, a Shanghai-based hacker, and Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., LTD., a China-based cybersecurity company, for their roles in cyber attacks against the U.S. OFAC said Yin was involved in the recent reported hacking of the Treasury Department by the Chinese government (see 2501020009) and Juxinhe Network has ties to the Salt Typhoon cyber group, which recently hacked the networks of multiple major U.S. telecommunications and internet service providers.
California-based machine tool manufacturer Haas Automation will pay more than $2.5 million to the U.S. government after being accused of illegally shipping parts and other items to sanctioned and Entity Listed companies in China and Russia.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned two people and four entities for helping the North Korean government earn revenue overseas, including through information technology workers stationed around the world.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a Miami-based real estate firm and its owner more than $1 million after the agency said they helped two sanctioned Russian oligarchs transfer their luxury condominiums to their non-sanctioned family members. The firm, Family International Realty LLC, “engaged in a willful scheme” to evade U.S. sanctions against Russia, OFAC said, and earned about $180,000 in commission fees for helping to manage the properties.
The U.S. this week issued a host of new Russia-related sanctions, designating nearly 100 entities as Russia-related secondary-sanctions risks and a range of other people and companies that it said are helping Russia evade sanctions. The Treasury Department sanctions specifically target a “sanctions evasion scheme” helping people in Russia and China make international payments for sensitive goods and a Kyrgyzstan bank also helping Russia evade sanctions, while new State Department sanctions target more than 150 entities and people, including in China, for supporting Russia’s military industrial base.
Gina Sokolovs, a former financial crime compliance associate with financial services firm Societe Generale, has joined the Office of Foreign Assets Control as a sanctions implementation and investigation specialist, she announced on LinkedIn. Sokolovs previously worked as a policy consultant with DHS in 2021.