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 EU on June 29 expanded its sanctions on Belarus for its role in Russia's war in Ukraine to better align it with the restrictions imposed on Russia and address sanctions evasion issues, including by requiring companies to insert a “no-Belarus clause” in their contracts.
Canada this week issued sanctions against people and entities for contributing to Israeli extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. The designations target seven people and five entities, including Zvi’s Farm, Hilltop Youth and others previously sanctioned by the U.S. and the EU (see 2403140019 and 2404190018).
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 Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will soon issue a final rule designating Iraqi-based Al-Huda Bank a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern, which “severs” the bank from the U.S. financial system. The rule, which finalizes a proposed rule FinCEN issued in January (see 2401290025), prohibits U.S. banks from opening or maintaining a correspondent account for or on behalf of Al-Huda Bank, which FinCEN said is a "conduit" for terrorist financing. The rule takes effect 30 days after it's published in the Federal Register.
The U.S. this week sanctioned three United Arab Emirates-based entities and 11 of their vessels for their ties to Iranian petroleum and petrochemical trade, the State Department said. The designations came as Iran announced steps “to further expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose,” the agency said.
The Biden administration hopes that new export controls and sanctions against Russia's war machine suppliers, including China, will spur Beijing to rethink its support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a State Department official said June 26.
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.
Japan recently announced sanctions and export restrictions on people and companies for aiding Russian war efforts against Ukraine, including parties in China, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, according to an unofficial translation of a notice from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation on June 25 removed sanctions from Aleksei Nikolaevich Filippovskii, director of PJSC Alrosa, a company operating in Russia's mining sector. The U.K. had sanctioned Filippovskii for working in a "sector of strategic significance" to the Russian government. OFSI didn't provide more information.