The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week updated two entries on its Specially Designated Nationals List. The changes update identifying information for Singapore-based Unicious Energy, which was sanctioned in February for helping sanctioned company Triliance Petrochemical sell Iranian petroleum products, and Behnam Shahriyari, an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A U.S.-Iran agreement to unfreeze nearly $6 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for five imprisoned Americans will be carried out with “significant oversight” and provide Tehran with no sanctions relief, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Aug. 15.

The Commerce, State and Labor departments issued an updated South Sudan business advisory this week to highlight the risks U.S. companies, investors and others in the country are facing, particularly involving state-owned companies, which may have ties to human rights abuses or corruption. The advisory, updated from guidance issued last year (see 2205230062), comes months after the country saw an increase in fighting between two Sudanese military forces (see 2305040037).

The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week issued a new set of Russia sanctions, designating four members of Russia’s “financial elite” and a Russian business association. The sanctions target Petr Olegovich Aven, Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, German Borisovich Khan and Alexey Viktorovich Kuzmichev, along with the Russian Association of Employers the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a Russian technology industry organization.

Canada this week announced a new set of sanctions against Belarus for the Alexander Lukashenko regime’s role in the country’s “fraudulent” 2020 presidential election. The designations target nine people and seven entities, including people “complicit in Russia’s ongoing” war against Ukraine, government officials and military manufacturing and technology companies. The U.S. announced new designations against Belarus this week (see 2308090025).

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week extended a general license that authorizes certain transactions related to Russian financial institutions. General License 13F, which replaced 13E, now expires 12:01 a.m. EST Nov. 8. The license -- which authorizes certain activities 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 -- was set to expire Aug. 17 (see 2305190059).

The U.S., the U.K. and Canada this week sanctioned the former governor of Lebanon’s central bank, Riad Salameh, and others involved in an international corruption scheme. The Treasury Department said Salameh “abused his position of power,” to “enrich himself and his associates” by funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through shell companies to invest in European real estate.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is seeking public comments on an information collection involving requirements for banks to submit reports of foreign financial accounts. The Bank Secrecy Act requires certain financial institutions to keep records and file reports -- including Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) -- that have a “high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax and regulatory matters or “in the conduct of intelligence or counter-intelligence activities” against international terrorism or money laundering to aid compliance procedures. Comments are due Oct. 10.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned three Sinaloa Cartel members involved in illegally trafficking fentanyl and other “deadly drugs.” The designations target brothers Alfonso Arzate Garcia and Rene Arzate Garcia, both Baja California, Mexico-based cartel leaders. OFAC also sanctioned Rafael Guadalupe Felix Nunez, a “violent” cartel leader in Manzanillo, Mexico. The agency also published a Sinaloa Cartel "operations chart."

The U.S. this week announced a new set of sanctions against Belarus, targeting eight people, five entities and one aircraft with ties to President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. The designations target people and entities that have helped the government evade sanctions or are involved in the government’s “continued civil society repression” or its “complicity” in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued two new general licenses to authorize certain transactions with two of the newly sanctioned entities.