We have a customer wanting to wire money to his brother in Syria. I have looked at the Syrian sanctions, and we have run the names through OFAC, with no hit. The Syrian sanctions don't seem to be a blanket restriction on Syria, just certain entities. Is there a total ban on wires to Syria?

My notes from a seminar says that there is a partial embargo against Syria. A full embargo prohibits sending money. In the case of Syria you must reject financial transactions involving the Govt. of Syria. I believe that if his brother were part of the government then he should show up on the SDN list.

I am trying to put together training material for OFAC.
I attended a seminar a few months ago that stated we could do no business with the 10 embargoed countries (Syria was one of them). The presenter went so far as to say if our customer was vacationing or working in these countries, we could not wire him/her money because of these restrictions.
I went to the Treasury website and looked at the sanctions program and it appears that I was given wrong information at the presentaion.I would like to present accurate information in the training class so could someone please clarify for me.

Syria is not a sanctioned Country for all wires only those going to the Govt of Syria or people who work for the Governnment. You can call OFAC to verify or go to their web site. There is only a partial embargo against Syria.