The U.S. unsealed an indictment this month charging seven people with helping Iran violate U.S. sanctions through a billion-dollar smuggling network that sold oil to buyers in China, Russia and Syria. DOJ also seized $108 million that the network tried to launder through correspondent accounts at U.S. banks.
The U.S. last week sanctioned a network of companies in Hong Kong and Iran for supplying materials and sensitive technology for Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs. OFAC said the companies act as “covert procurement entities” for Iran and have helped the country develop its Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles that Iran sends to Russia for its war against Ukraine.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Feb. 1 that he is working with ranking member Jim Risch, R-Idaho, to craft a “comprehensive” bill to address a wide range of concerns about China.
A new alert published by the countries behind the Russian oil price cap outlines a set of “key” cap evasion tactics and how to identify and report them. It also details several red flags and stresses that vessel owners, insurers and other service providers need to conduct due diligence to make sure they’re not helping others violate the cap.
U.S. trade policy toward China should concentrate on protecting advanced technology, as opposed to completely decoupling from the Communist country, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Jan. 30.
The U.S. and the EU are continuing to prioritize export control and sanctions enforcement against Russia, said Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s top trade official, and he suggested the EU may soon issue penalties against companies for evading the bloc’s sanctions. He also said the two sides are working on ways they can both put in place new export controls proposed at consensus-based multilateral regimes, such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, even if they are blocked by Russia.
The European Council on Jan. 29 added four people and one entity to its global human rights sanctions regime and renewed its Russia-related sanctions regime for another six months.
The U.K. issued an alert this week warning that Russian oligarchs may be using artwork storage facilities to hide their frozen assets, evade sanctions or launder money. People and companies involved in the art industry should be conducting “regular due diligence checks to understand any change in a client’s circumstances, or those of elites they may represent,” the country’s National Crime Agency, Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and other agencies said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week again renewed its temporary denial order for a Venezuela-based cargo airline after saying it continues to try to violate U.S. export restrictions in "continued disregard" for the terms of the TDO. BIS said Empresa de Transporte Aereocargo del Sur, also known as Aerocargo del Sur Transportation or Emtrasur, will continue to be subject to the denial order for 180 days from Jan. 21.
The U.S., the U.K. and Australia on Jan. 23 sanctioned Russian national Aleksandr Ermakov, who played a “pivotal” role in a 2022 ransomware attack against an Australian healthcare insurance company. The Office of Foreign Assets Control said Ermakov is a “cybercriminal” who also poses a risk to U.S. healthcare firms.