The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week removed Kyriaki Demetriou Kamperi from its Specially Designated Nationals List after originally sanctioning him in 2023 for his Russia ties. The U.S. at the time said Kamperi was a "leader, official, senior executive officer, or member of the board of directors of" the Russian government and Russian bank Sberbank. The U.S. also said he had ties to companies owned by Christodoulos Georgiou Vassiliades, who was also designated for being a Sberbank executive. OFAC updated the SDN entry for the company Vassiliades & Co UK Limited to remove a reference to Kamperi.

The U.S. seized two vessels on the high seas Jan. 7 after saying they had violated U.S. sanctions.

Switzerland announced this week that it has frozen assets held within the country by Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan leader captured by the U.S. earlier this month, along with the assets of "other persons associated with him." The country's Federal Council said the move is aimed at preventing "an outflow of assets."

President Donald Trump said Venezuela will soon turn over to the U.S. 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil, which will be sold at market price. The money from those sales "will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!" he said Jan. 6 in a Truth Social post.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control renewed a general license this week that authorizes payments of certain taxes, fees, import duties, licenses, certifications and other similar transactions involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation that would normally be blocked under Directive 4 of Executive Order 14024. General License 13P, which replaces 13O, authorizes those transactions through 12:01 a.m. ET April 9, as long as they're “ordinarily incident and necessary to the day-to-day operations in the Russian Federation of such U.S. persons or entities.” The license was scheduled to expire Jan. 9.

The U.S. sanctioned 229 entities under its transactional criminal organization sanctions authorities in 2025, a sharp uptick from the 10 parties it designated in 2024, risk intelligence firm Kharon said. It said most of the TCO-related designations this year came in October, when the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the Cambodia-based Prince Group and more than 100 people and entities with ties to it. OFAC said the group runs online scams and is involved in human trafficking (see 2510140005).

Etasis, a Turkish machinery company, was removed from the Office of Foreign Asset Control's Specially Designated Nationals List earlier this month "following an extensive remediation process and a comprehensive compliance transformation," CBC Law Firm announced on LinkedIn. The Istanbul-based firm said its client strengthened sanctions compliance controls, practices and governance structures, which led to the removal. "This delisting reflects the value of sustained commitment to compliance and transparent engagement with regulators and represents a meaningful development for the adoption of sanction compliance programs for private corporations."

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned four companies and their oil tankers for operating in Venezuela’s oil sector. The designations target Corniola Limited and its ship manager and operator, Krape Myrtle Co, which owns the vessel Nord Star and which OFAC said used it to move Venezuelan oil. The agency also sanctioned other oil-moving ships, including Rosalind, whose registered owner is Winky International Limited; and Della and Valiant, whose registered owner is Aries Global Investment LTD.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned 10 people and entities based in Venezuela and Iran that it said are involved in trading and producing unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed several people from its sanctions list this week, including Alexandra Buriko, former chief financial officer of Russian state-owned Sberbank, who resigned from the bank after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She sued the Treasury Department last year to be removed from the Specially Designated Nationals List, and that lawsuit remains pending.