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.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned one person in Mexico and two in China for their ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, a Mexican drug trafficking group. The designations target Mexico-based Diego Acosta Ovalle, who helped the cartel hide and collect drug trafficking money, and China-based Tong Peiji and He Jiaxuan, members of a U.S.-based Chinese money laundering organization that has laundered illegal drug proceeds belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control plans to issue guidance on a law signed by President Joe Biden in April that extended the statute of limitations on certain sanctions violations from five to 10 years (see 2404290071 and 2404240043), Baker McKenzie said in a client alert this week. The law firm recently hosted a talk with OFAC official Lawrence Scheinert who said the agency is “working through the relevant legal issues” and plans to issue guidance about how the “change will be implemented,” Baker McKenzie said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on June 26 renewed a general license that authorizes certain transactions related to crude oil originating from the Sakhalin-2 project, an oil and gas development business based in Russia (see 2309140031 and 2211230047). General License 55B, which replaces 55A, authorizes those transactions “provided that the Sakhalin-2 byproduct is solely for importation into Japan.” The license was scheduled to expire June 28, 2024, but now expires 12:01 a.m. EDT June 28, 2025.
The U.S. fined an Italian animation company $538,000 after it violated U.S. sanctions by outsourcing work to an animation studio owned by the North Korean government, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said in an enforcement release. The company, Mondo TV, illegally used U.S. banks to send money to the studio through wire transfers, OFAC said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned about 50 entities and people, including a “sprawling” shadow banking network, used by Iran’s military to access the international financial system. Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have used the network to process billions of dollars since 2020, OFAC said, and use various exchange houses and foreign “cover companies” to “disguise the revenue they generate abroad,” which they then use to buy and develop advanced weapons systems.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned 12 executives working for Kaspersky, the Russian cybersecurity software firm, for working in Russia’s technology sector. The designations target senior officials of AO Kaspersky Lab one day after the Commerce Department announced that it would be adding the lab, as well as Russia-based OOO Kaspersky Group and U.K.-based Kaspersky Labs Limited, to the Entity List (see 2406200032).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control urged a federal court late last month to dismiss the sole remaining claim in a lawsuit challenging the agency’s sanctioning of two former Afghan government officials for corruption.
The U.S. this week designated people and companies tied to the sanctioned president of the Serb Republic and his family, including businesses they use to generate wealth or evade sanctions, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said. OFAC also issued two new general licenses to authorize certain transactions with the people and companies and updated one existing license.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned several people and entities, along with one vessel, for helping to procure weapons for the Iran-backed Houthis or for shipping commodities to fund the Yemen-based group. The designations target procurement officers and companies in China along with others in Oman, Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates.