Sanctions target drug traffickers south of border

Most Kingpin Act designations during the Trump administration have been associated with Mexican drug cartels, according to a Treasury official who testified to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday.    A Treasury Department official involved in developing sanctions shared some data with the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee during a Wednesday hearing.
   Treasury Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Deputy Assistant Secretary Jennifer Fowler in written testimony said that most of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC’s) Kingpin Act designations since January 2017 have targeted Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
   Since that date, OFAC has announced 13 Kingpin Act actions designating a total of 174 individuals and entities, 103 of which were designated for association with Mexican drug-trafficking organizations, Fowler said.
   OFAC also has frozen “hundreds of millions of dollars’” worth of assets using the Kingpin Act and transnational criminal organization (TCO) designation authority in the past 16 months and has detected the movement of Venezuelan corruption and drug proceeds, she said.
   “Since 2017, OFAC has designated more than 50 Venezuelan government officials and their criminal associates and has prohibited U.S. persons from dealing in Venezuela’s digital currency (the ‘petro’), new debt and equity financing related to the government of Venezuela,” Fowler wrote.
   Terror organization Hezbollah is active in the Venezuela region, and “sympathizers” of the group have taken advantage of free trade zones and a “lax regulatory environment” to build legitimate and illegitimate import-export companies, Fowler said.
   “As our designation of the Barakat organization demonstrates, some of these businesses have been used as front companies for Hizballah, while others have siphoned a portion of their profits to provide support to Hizballah,” Fowler testified. “We continue to investigate possible Hizballah terrorist financing and criminal activity in this area.”
   OFAC in April designated Syrian national Nasif Barakat and the Homs, Syria-based Barakat TCO, an organization that facilitates smuggling of Syrian and Lebanese nationals to the U.S. border using several travel routes, according to Treasury.
   OFAC has sanctioned at least 12 individuals and entities subject to the U.S. Hizballah Financial Sanctions Regulations since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal May 8.
   OFAC has issued six rounds of designations including Iran-linked individuals and entities on its specially designated nationals list since May 8, according to the agency’s website.
   The last round of Iran designations issued Thursday includes 31 aircraft.