The Office of Foreign Assets Controls designated Chinese fishing companies Dalian Ocean Fishing and Pingtan Marine Enterprise and their respective leaders, Li Zhenyu and Xinrong Zhuo, along with eight other affiliated entities and 157 vessels for serious human rights abuses related to Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in violation of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, according to a Dec. 9 news release.

The Treasury Department will prioritize most enforcement of its price cap on Russian oil against “willful violators,” a senior agency official stressed this week, reminding industry that due diligence and recordkeeping could significantly mitigate any potential penalties. Elizabeth Rosenberg, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said the agency established its safe harbor protocol (see 2211230047) so it can target service providers intentionally looking to support Russia’s oil industry and protect those conducting good-faith sanctions compliance.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated a sanctions evasion network led by businessman Sitki Ayan that has allegedly facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil sales on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the agency said Dec. 8. The action supplements OFAC’s May 25 designations, which targeted a part of the network (see 2205250025).

The State Department should designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, which would allow the U.S to impose certain sanctions or trade restrictions on it, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said. They said the State Department has “neglected” to designate Nigeria for the second straight year after removing the designation last year, saying the country tolerates “severe violations of religious freedom.”

Canada imposed another set of sanctions against people in Haiti for providing support to armed gangs in the country, Canada announced this week. The sanctions target three “high-profile members of the economic elite” in Haiti: Gilbert Bigio, Reynold Deeb and Sherif Abdallah. Canada said the people are using their status to “protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption.” Canada earlier this year sanctioned other Haitian political elites for supporting gangs (see 2211210026).

Canada recently imposed additional sanctions against Iran for its suppression of protesters, targeting four Iranian people and five entities “for their roles in the regime’s gross and systematic human rights violations and actions that continue to threaten international peace and security.” The sanctions target military officials Morteza Talaei and Hassan Karami; Ali Ghanaatkar Mavardiani, a senior judge prosecutor and interrogator; Iranian cargo and commercial airline Safiran Airport Services; technology research services company Baharestan Kish; and Javan News Agency. Also sanctioned were Paravar Pars Aerospace Engineering Services and Research, Design and Manufacturing of Aircraft Engines, and Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi.

The State Department maintained its designation of Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it said in a notice. The agency said circumstances haven’t changed “in such a manner as to warrant revocation of the designation.”

The Office of Foreign Assets Control added two Haitian politicians to its Specially Designated Nationals List in connection with drug trafficking, it said in a Dec. 2 news release. The action comes less than a month after the U.S. and Canada designated two other Haitian politicians (see 2211040064).

The U.S. on Nov. 30 sanctioned four people with ties to terrorist groups. The State Department said the designations target leaders of al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The four are Mufti Hazrat Deroji, Atif Yahya Ghouri, Muhammad Maruf and Osama Mehmood.

At least three vessels, including a Chinese-owned ship, have illegally exported Venezuelan oil and falsified cargo documents to conceal the oil’s origin, Reuters reported Nov. 30. The ships include the Chinese-owned supertanker Young Yong, sanctioned by the U.S. in November (see 2211030036), which loaded oil in Venezuela last year before sailing to the Chinese port of Qingdao with cargo documents that stated the oil was from Malaysia, the report said.