A British court last week sentenced two Russians, including one former senior trade official, to prison for violating U.K. sanctions against Russia. The case marks the first conviction in the U.K. for a breach of sanctions under its Russia Sanctions Regulations, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Russian national Oleg Patsulya was sentenced April 2 to nearly six years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to ship controlled aviation technology to Russia in violation of U.S. export laws and to launder money in connection with the scheme, DOJ announced.
The U.S. this week unsealed an indictment charging José Adolfo Macías Villamar, leader of the Ecuadorian drug trafficking group Los Choneros, with smuggling firearms from the U.S. along with other drug and weapons-related charges. DOJ said Macías Villamar helped Los Choneros obtain firearms and weapons by illegally trafficking and exporting them from the U.S., including by hiring people to buy guns in the U.S. and smuggle them to Ecuador.
DOJ this week announced charges against two Iranian nationals and one company for illegally sending export-controlled U.S. technology to Iran and for providing "material support" to the country's military.
The U.S. this month arrested and charged a Pakistani-Canadian national with conspiracy to violate U.S. export controls after DOJ said he illegally shipped millions of dollars worth of controlled items to entities in Pakistan, including ones on the Entity List, all while hiding the true end-users from U.S. exporters.
DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 26 looking to collect $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly "one million barrels of Iranian petroleum," claiming the money is property of, or "affording a person a source of influence over," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its Qods Force, DOJ announced.
California-based importer Evolutions Flooring and its owners, Mengya Lin and Jin Qian, agreed to settle claims they violated the False Claims Act by "knowingly and improperly evading customs duties" on multilayered wood flooring from China, DOJ announced. DOJ said the company and its owners will pay $8.1 million to settle the case, noting that whistleblower Urban Global will receive around $1.2 million of the proceeds.
The Department of the Treasury last week dropped sanctions against cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash following a review of the "novel legal and policy issues raised by use of financial sanctions against financial and commercial activity occurring within evolving technology and legal environments." Treasury told a Texas court it removed Tornado Cash from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list, arguing that a case against the sanctions listing should now be briefed on whether the issue is moot (Van Loon, et al. v. Department of the Treasury, W.D. Tex. # 23-00312).
The U.S. filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on March 18 against an aircraft that was allegedly smuggled from the U.S. and operated to benefit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls. The aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 900 EX plane with tail number T7-ESPRT, was seized last year in the Dominican Republic at the request of the U.S., DOJ said.
A Chinese national was sentenced on March 14 to 30 months in prison for his role in a scheme to smuggle protected turtles from the U.S. to Hong Kong, DOJ announced. Sai Keung Tin pleaded guilty last year to four counts of illegally exporting the turtles.