OFAC Sanctions Venezuelan Officials

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two Venezuelan officials who it called “corrupt [Nicolas] Maduro insiders,” according to an April 26 press release. OFAC added Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat, Venezuela’s minister of Foreign Affairs, and Carol Bealexis Padilla de Arretureta, a Venezuelan court judge, to the Specially Designated Nationals List.

Arreaza was named minister in August 2017 after serving in a variety of government roles, including vice minister of Scientific and Technological Development of the Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology, and Intermediate Industries from 2010 to 2011 and the executive vice president of Venezuela between 2013 and 2016, Treasury said. Padilla de Arretureta serves as the “judge in charge of the First Special Court of First Instance in Control Functions,” according to Treasury, and was appointed a substitute judge of the Court of Appeals of the criminal judicial circuit in Caracas in 2017. “Treasury will continue to target corrupt Maduro insiders, including those tasked with conducting diplomacy and carrying out justice on behalf of this illegitimate regime,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.