A federal magistrate judge at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in an order unsealed May 13 that the U.S. had probable cause to believe that an unnamed American citizen violated U.S. sanctions by using cryptocurrency to help various parties evade restrictions. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ruled that virtual currency is traceable and that sanctions apply to virtual currency (In Re: Criminal Complaint, D.D.C. #22-00067).
Peter Quinter, former customs and international trade attorney at GrayRobinson, joined Gunster as the leader of its Customs and International Trade Law Group, Quinter said in a post on his LinkedIn account. Quinter advises on issues involving investigations by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. Before entering private practice, Quinter served as counsel at the Southeast Regional Headquarters of the U.S. Customs Service.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the sanctions listing of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, finding that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control provided proper evidence for the listing. The court also held that while Deripaska was found to no longer own two major energy companies, OFAC found him to still operate them, justifying his placement in the Russian sanctions regime.
The U.S. charged American citizen John "Jack" Hanick with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia related to Russians promoting separatism in Crimea in 2014 via his work for sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said. Hanick was arrested on Feb. 3 in London and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the sanctions charge and five years in prison for a false statements charge. The criminal indictment is the first stemming from the 2014 Russia sanctions regime.
Akin Gump broadened its international trade practice with the addition of two former U.S. government officials and sanctions and export controls lawyers, the firm announced. Elyse Martin, former official at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and George Pence, former assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California, have joined the firm as senior counsel. While at OFAC, Martin served as the assistant director for Regulatory Affairs for two years and for over a year as chief of sanctions program implementation in the Sanctions Compliance and Evaluation Division, the firm said. As assistant U.S. attorney, Pence worked on investigations and prosecutions pertaining to export crimes, terrorism and other national security matters, it said.
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Michael Parker, a former official at both the Justice and the Treasury departments, has joined Ferrari & Associates as counsel heading up the firm's money laundering and sanctions practice, the firm announced Dec. 1. Parker was previously a sanctions investigator and later a chief in the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s enforcement division before joining DOJ, where he prosecuted transnational crime and money laundering violations.
Norbert Basengezi Katintima, former vice president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), launched a case Nov. 5 at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge his spot on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. Katintima is challenging the decision made by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to deny his delisting application. The former CENI official says that the circumstances that contributed to his original listing have changed, necessitating his removal from the list (Norbert Basengezi Katintima v. Bradley Smith, et al., D.D.C. #21-02917).
The Biden administration is likely to increase export controls and sanctions enforcement in the next few years, Gibson Dunn lawyers said during a webinar this week. They also said the administration is likely to pursue enforcement in creative ways, including sometimes through disclosures with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
Three members of a Florida family were charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and money laundering, the Department of Justice said. Mohammad Faghihi, along with his wife, Farzeneh Modarresi, and sister, Faezeh Faghihi, led Florida-based Express Gene -- a company that allegedly received multiple wire transfers from accounts in Malaysia, China, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, totaling nearly $3.5 million, between October 2016 and November 2020. Some of this money allegedly was used to buy and then ship genetic sequencing equipment to Iran without a license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, DOJ said.