“The United States Treasury Department has imposed new sanctions on the Russian army for an alleged scheme carried out by the company Sovfracht in order to provide fuel to its armed forces in Syria in support of the Assad government. The plot was discovered by OFAC along with the FBI and the Attorney General of the District of Columbia.
On September 26th 2019, OFAC, under this assumption and in accordance with Ordinance 13685, sanctioned:
- Maritime Assistance LLC, OJSC Sovfracht’s shell company. The latter company has already imposed a number of sanctions by the U.S. for operations that took place in Ukraine. The company is behind a large plot of evasion of sanctions orchestrated by the three persons who have also been sanctioned.
- Ivan Okorokov, Karen Stepanyan and Ilia Loginov. These three people, all with important positions in Sovfranch, linked the payments and facilitated the transfer of fuel.
- Five vessels owned by Transpetrochart Co. Ltd., a Russian company that since 2016 provided material to Sovfracht.
As a consequence of this, all property and shares held by sanctioned persons in the United States, or by American persons, must be blocked and reported to OFAC.
