DOJ seized 13 web domains used by Specially Designated Nationals and Global Terrorists and their members linked with Lebanese Hezbollah. The department received court authorization to seize five domains registered to the Public Interest Registry and eight domains registered to Verisign, DOJ said May 11. It said sanctioned parties cannot "obtain services, including website and domain services," without a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York should toss the U.S. claim that FTX crypto-exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provision since the government failed to allege an essential element of the FCPA, Bankman-Fried said in a motion to dismiss. The U.S. said payments were made to unfreeze assets belonging to cryptocurrency firm Alameda Research but didn't say payments were made to "secure or retain a contract with a foreign government agency, gain an unfair advantage, or achieve an objective of the sort addressed in the FCPA’s text or legislative history or in relevant caselaw" (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).

British American Tobacco and its subsidiary BAT Marketing Singapore will pay over $629 million to settle charges that the companies violated U.S. sanctions on North Korea. BAT, a cigarette manufacturer, allegedly participated in a scheme to conduct business in North Korea via a Singapore-based third party in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act's bank fraud statute, DOJ said April 25. Concurrent with the settlement announcement, the U.S. filed charges against a North Korean banker and Chinese facilitators for their role in the scheme.

New York lawyer Robert Wise pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to make around $3.8 million in payments to maintain six real properties in the U.S. owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Wise pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit international money laundering and faces a maximum of five years in prison, DOJ said April 25. He also forfeited more than $3.7 million and agreed "to be satisfied" by a $210,441 payment.

Fabian Humberto Tovar Caicedo, a former Colombian Army intelligence officer, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine for import into the U.S. Tovar Caicedo offered certain "corrupt services" to a drug trafficking organization, including the provision of police in Colombia's Port of Santa Marta that that were willing to "facilitate the export of cocaine in exchange for payment," DOJ said April 25.

Sim Hyon Sop, a representative of a North Korean foreign trade bank, was charged in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in two federal indictments for his role in two different money laundering conspiracies meant to raise funds for North Korea via cryptocurrency, in violation of U.S. sanctions, DOJ announced. Sim allegedly conspired with over-the-counter cryptocurrency traders to "use stolen funds to buy goods for North Korea and for conspiring with North Korean IT workers to generate revenue through illegal employment at blockchain development companies" in the U.S., DOJ said.

Rana Tanveer, a Beckley, West Virginia, resident, pleaded guilty April 20 to committing an export fraud violation by submitting false export valuations for certain items shipped to Pakistan, DOJ announced. Tanveer faces a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

Sergey Karpushkin, a U.S. businessman and Belarussian national, was charged with participating in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions on Russian oligarch Sergey Kurchenko and two of his related companies by buying over $150 million in steelmaking materials, DOJ announced April 19. The Belarussian is the second to be charged in the scheme after John Unsalan, president of building materials supplier Metalhouse, was hit with similar charges earlier this week (see 2304180033).

Claudia Patricia Diaz Guillen, Venezuela's former national treasurer, and her husband, Adrian Jose Velasquez, each were sentenced to 15 years in prison for their roles in a bribery and money-laundering scheme in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, DOJ announced April 19. The duo accepted and laundered over $136 million in bribes from Venezuelan billionaire and Globovision news network owner Raul Gorrin Belisario in exchange for access to purchase bonds from the Venezuela National Treasury at a favorable exchange rate.

Two companies, one based in Taiwan and the other in Brunei, each must pay a fine of $83,769 and serve a five-year corporate probation term for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and export laws by shipping U.S.-made goods to Iran, DOJ announced. Taiwan-based DES International and Brunei-based Soltech Industry, charged in 2020 (see 2011120006), both pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and were sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.