Florida resident Victor Mones Coro was sentenced to 55 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Venezuela by chartering private flights for top Venezuelan officials, the Department of Justice said March 17. Sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mones Coro provided millions of dollars in charter flight services to former Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, his frontman Samark Lopez Bello, Venezuelan Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 campaign for president. The chartered flights violate the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions on the Venezuelan officials for their role in subverting democracy and proliferating authoritarianism. Mones Coro also will pay a $250,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a California-based satellite communications company $122,000 for illegally exporting controlled goods to Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil. BIS said the company, Comtech Xicom Technology, exported more than $150,000 worth of “traveling wave tubes” (TWT) without licenses, a March 18 order said.
The U.S. issued a series of increased export controls against Russia for the poisoning of Russian political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, including tighter restrictions on license exceptions and national security-controlled goods. The restrictions, first announced earlier this month (see 2103020067) but outlined in more detail in notices released March 17, will introduce new conditions and restrictions over sensitive exports to Russia and end certain U.S. arms sales to the county, the Commerce and State departments said. The restrictions take effect March 18.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security denied a New Jersey man export privileges after he illegally exported electronic components to Russia, BIS said in a March 8 order. BIS denied Alexander Brazhnikov export privileges for 15 years. Brazhnikov pleaded guilty to the charges in 2015 and was sentenced to 70 months in prison in 2016 (see 1607010044).
The U.S. extended national emergencies authorizing sanctions against Zimbabwe, Venezuela and “with respect to” Russia's activity in Ukraine, the White House said March 3. The White House said Zimbabwe's president “hasn’t made the necessary political and economic reforms” that would warrant rescinding U.S. sanctions. It also said the situations in Ukraine and Venezuela “continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to” U.S. national security.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued guidance March 2 on how it will implement the increased export restrictions against Russia for the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny (see 2103020067). DDTC said it will amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to add Russia to the list of countries subject to a policy of denial for defense exports and services. That restriction will include certain exceptions, including a case-by-case review for exports that support “government space cooperation” and a six-month exception for exports that support “commercial space launches,” which will also be subject to a case-by-case review. DDTC said other exemptions will be provided for exports to Russia “when in furtherance of government space cooperation.”
The U.S. needs to modernize its approach to export controls and expand disclosure requirements for foreign investment screening to maintain its technology dominance over China, a U.S. national security commission said in a report this week. The commission called current U.S. export controls outdated, urged the Commerce Department to more quickly control emerging and foundational technologies, and said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should review a broader set of transactions to protect sensitive technologies.
The European Union added four Russian individuals to its sanctions list for serious human rights violations, including the arbitrary arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the crackdown on the subsequent protests, the European Council announced in a March 2 press release. The sanctioned individuals are Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation; Igor Krasnov, the Prosecutor-General; Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard; and Alexander Kalashnikov, head of the Federal Prison Service. The restrictive measures consist of a travel ban and asset freeze, and people and entities in the EU are forbidden from making funds available to the listed individuals. These sanctions mark the first use of the new EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, established on Dec. 7, 2020, that permits the EU to use sanctions for human-rights related purposes including genocide, slavery, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and other violations.
The U.S. sanctioned a host of Russian officials and agencies, will add 14 entities to the Entity List and will increase restrictions on exports of military-related goods to Russia in response to the poisoning and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The increased export controls will also remove certain license exceptions for shipments to Russia and will impose stricter license review policies for certain sensitive goods, the State Department said March 2.