The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned six Nigerian nationals who allegedly ran an email scheme to steal more than $6 million from U.S. companies and people, Treasury said June 16. The Nigerian nationals impersonated business executives and “engaged in romance fraud” -- in which they “masqueraded as affectionate partners to gain trust from victims” -- to receive wire transfers, Treasury said. The sanctions target Richard Uzuh, Micheal Olorunyomi, Alex Ogunshakin, Felix Okpoh, Nnamdi Benson and Abiola Kayode.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 8-12 in case you missed them.

The Commerce Department will officially amend the Export Administration Regulations June 18 to allow U.S. companies to more easily participate in standards setting bodies in which Huawei is a member, the agency said in a notice. Commerce, which previously announced details of the measure (see 2006150062), is seeking comments on the revision, which will allow the release of certain technology to Huawei and its affiliates on the Entity List if that release is in the context of a standards-setting body and not for commercial purposes. Comments are due Aug. 17.

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security announced a new set of export controls on certain cultivation chambers and chemicals (see 2005150048). The controls, agreed to by the Australia Group during a February meeting, restrict the sales of certain “rigid-walled, single-use” cultivation chambers and precursor chemicals, along with the “Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus,” or MERS. The final rule, which takes effect June 17, falls under BIS's effort to restrict sales of emerging technologies (see 2005190052), as mandated by the 2018 Export Control Reform Act, the agency said.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls expects to increase its end-user checks on sensitive defense exports after the transfer of gun export controls from the State Department to the Commerce Department was finalized earlier this year, the agency said. The transfer -- which placed Commerce in charge of export controls for firearms, ammunition and other defense items -- will free up DDTC to conduct more thorough post-shipment checks as part of its Blue Lantern process, the agency’s end-use monitoring program.

To operate in the Netherlands, cryptocurrency providers must establish sanctions compliance controls, a June 11 EU Sanctions blog post said. The regulation, announced last month, calls for providers to register with the Dutch Central Bank, which requires “adequate internal measures and controls to ensure compliance” with EU and Dutch sanctions requirements, the post said. The bank may deny a registration if it does not approve of a company’s compliance program.

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of June 15 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

Cambodia will soon require all food labels and packaging to be translated into the country’s Khmer language, a June 12 KPMG post said. The measure, effective July 1, will apply to all companies and factories handling food packaging or labels.

India is restricting a range of tire imports, the country’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a June 12 notice. The restrictions apply to imports of certain tires for cars, lorries, motorcycles and bicycles. The listed imports had been designated with an import policy of "free."

China’s General Administration of Customs issued new measures for export supervision of certain e-commerce transactions, according to an unofficial translation of a June 12 notice. The measures outline what types of procedures are subject to customs supervision, registration and record requirements for traders, customs clearance processes and more. The measures take effect July 1.