Jalal Hajavi of Virginia was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after he illegally exported heavy equipment from the U.S. to Iran, DOJ announced this week. Hajavi also misled a U.S. freight forwarder about the “ultimate destination” of the shipment, DOJ said, which caused the forwarder to file false export information to the Commerce Department.
The U.S. this week charged Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and Gary Lam with export violations after DOJ said they helped illegally procure hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of U.S. and foreign-made components for Iran. Along with the indictment, the two were sanctioned by the Treasury Department for using companies across several countries to buy parts for Iran’s unmanned drone program.
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Six users of the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash are appealing a U.S. court decision that upheld sanctions against the cryptocurrency service, saying the Treasury Department illegally stretched its authorities “beyond recognition” when it designated Tornado Cash last year. The six people argued that U.S. sanctions laws don’t allow Treasury to designate an “open-source software project” like Tornado Cash because it doesn’t meet the definition of “property” under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
John Pisa-Relli, trade compliance counsel with GE Aerospace, will join the Office of Foreign Assets Control next month to serve as the agency’s enforcement liaison to U.S. federal and state law enforcement and regulatory agencies, he announced this week on LinkedIn. Pisa-Relli previously worked as a liaison for OFAC from 2003 to 2005.
Jenner & Block partner Rachel Alpert was tapped to serve as the chief counsel to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the firm announced on Oct. 24. Alpert has worked at Jenner & Block since 2021 and has fleshed out the firm's national security, sanctions and export controls practice, along with the human rights and global strategy practice. Her practice centered around export controls and sanctions proceedings under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Export Administration Regulations and OFAC regulations, among other things. Prior to working at Jenner & Block, Alpert worked as an attorney-adviser to the State Department and as counsel at Latham & Watkins.
The U.S. filed a forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against a 348-foot superyacht allegedly owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, DOJ announced Oct. 23. The vessel, worth more than $300 million, was seized in 2022 in Fiji following a U.S. request for mutual legal assistance. The yacht was "improved and maintained in violation of" sanctions on Kerimov and "those acting on his behalf," DOJ alleged.
DOJ unsealed eight indictments in two Florida district courts on Oct. 3, charging a host of Chinese companies and their employees with illegally producing and distributing fentanyl and methamphetamine and their precursor chemicals. The indictments were accompanied by a move from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to sanction 28 individuals and entities for the same reasons (see 2310030066).
Farhad Nafeiy, a California-based telecommunications consultant, pleaded guilty this week to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after he breached the scope of sanctions licenses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The U.S. removed sanctions from two former board members of a Russian state-owned bank after both argued they didn’t meet the criteria for placement on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List. The sanctions removals, made by the Office of Foreign Assets Control late last month, came after Russian nationals Elena Titova and Andrey Golikov, in separate complaints, sued the U.S. government over their designations, accusing it of sanctioning them on “no factual basis” and “unnecessarily” delaying delisting decisions.