InfoBytes Blog
OFAC sanctions individuals and entities tied to ISIS
On January 5, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions pursuant to Executive Order 13224 against a key financial facilitation network of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which includes four individuals and two entities in Türkiye who are connected to the group’s recruitment and financial transfers to and from Iraq and Syria. According to OFAC, the designated network has “played a key role in money management, transfer, and distribution for ISIS in the region.” The Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance, in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, also implemented an asset freeze against members of this network. As a result of the sanctions, all property and interests in property belonging to the sanctioned persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. Additionally, “any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more” by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. U.S. persons are also generally prohibited from engaging in any dealings involving the property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons. Persons that engage in certain transactions with the designated individuals or entities may themselves be exposed to secondary sanctions, OFAC warned, adding that “OFAC can prohibit or impose strict conditions on the opening or maintaining in the United States of a correspondent account or a payable-through account of a foreign financial institution that has knowingly conducted or facilitated any significant transaction on behalf of a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).”