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Yesterday, the Department of the Treasury reported that OFAC has designated five individuals for helping U.S.-designated Hizballah money exchanger Hassan Moukalled (Moukalled) and his company, CTEX Exchange, evade sanctions and facilitate illicit activities in support of Hizballah. These individuals, including two co-founders of CTEX Exchange and two of Moukalled’s sons, operate two companies in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that were concurrently designated. Individuals and entities targeted yesterday were designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended, which targets terrorist groups, their supporters, and those who aid acts of terrorism.

For the names and identification information of the designated parties, see the May 2, 2024, BankersOnline OFAC Update.

Yesterday, the Treasury Department announced actions to further degrade Russia’s ability to sustain its war machine, continuing a multilateral campaign to limit the Kremlin’s revenue and access to the materiel it needs to prosecute its illegal war against Ukraine. Yesterday’s actions target Russia’s military-industrial base and chemical and biological weapons programs as well as companies and individuals in third countries that help Russia acquire key inputs for weapons or defense-related production. Nearly 300 targets were sanctioned by Treasury and the Department of State, including sanctions on dozens of actors that have enabled Russia to acquire technology and equipment from abroad.

In addition to the nearly 200 targets sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury, the Department of State has imposed sanctions on over 80 entities and individuals that are engaged in sanctions evasion and circumvention or are related to Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs and defense industrial base. The Department of State also targeted Russia’s revenue generation through its future energy, metals, and mining production and sanctioning additional individuals in connection with the death of opposition leader and anticorruption activist Aleksey Navalny. For more information on State actions, see the Department of State Fact Sheet.

Today’s action includes nearly 60 targets located in Azerbaijan, Belgium, the PRC, Russia, Slovakia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), that enable Russia to acquire desperately-needed technology and equipment from abroad.

For the names and identification information of the designated individuals, entities, and vessels, see the May 1, 2024, BankersOnline OFAC Update.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation yesterday reported the elder fraud complaints to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) increased by 14 percent in 2023, and associated losses increased by about 11 percent, according the IC3’s 2023 Elder Fraud Report, released yesterday. Five takeaways from the report:

• Elder fraud is an expensive crime. Scams targeting individuals aged 60 and older caused over $3.4 billion in losses in 2023—an increase of approximately 11% from the year prior. The average victim of elder fraud lost $33,915 due to these crimes in 2023.
• Older Americans seem to be disproportionately impacted by scams and fraud. Over 101,000 victims aged 60 and over reported this kind of crime to IC3 in 2023. On the flip side, victims under the age of 20 years old seemed to be the least-impacted demographic, with about 18,000 victims in this demographic reporting suspected scams or frauds to IC3 last year.
• Tech support scams were the most widely reported kind of elder fraud in 2023. Nearly 18,000 victims aged 60 and over reported such scams to IC3. Personal data breaches, confidence and romance scams, non-payment or non-delivery scams, and investment scams rounded out the top five most common types of elder fraud reported to IC3 last year.
• Investment scams were the costliest kind of elder fraud in 2023. These schemes cost victims more than $1.2 billion in losses last year. And tech support scams, business email compromise scams, confidence and romance scams, government impersonation scams, and personal data breaches all respectively cost victims hundreds of millions of dollars in 2023.
• Scammers are coming for people’s cryptocurrency. More than 12,000 victims aged 60 and over indicated that cryptocurrency was “a medium or tool used to facilitate” the scam or fraud that targeted them when reporting it to IC3.

FinCEN reports it is offering a webinar on its YouTube channel this afternoon at 2 p.m. ET on Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Requirements.

OFAC has posted a Notice that it has issued Russia-related General License 8I, "Authorizing Transactions Related to Energy."

The Treasury Department yesterday reported that OFAC has sanctioned over one dozen entities, individuals, and vessels that have played a central role in facilitating and financing the clandestine sale of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), which itself is involved in supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

For identification information on the individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft that OFAC designated, see BankersOnline’s April 25, 2024, OFAC Update.

On Tuesday, a Treasury Department news release reported that OFAC has sanctioned two companies and four individuals involved in malicious cyber activity on behalf of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC). These actors targeted more than a dozen U.S. companies and government entities through cyber operations, including spear phishing and malware attacks. In conjunction with today’s action, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation unsealed an indictment against the four individuals for their roles in cyber activity targeting U.S. entities.

Treasury also reported that OFAC had sanctioned two leaders of al-Qa’ida-aligned terrorist group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) for hostage-taking of U.S. persons in West Africa. The Department of State concurrently announced its designation of seven JNIM leaders.

For names and identification information of the designated parties, see the April 23, 2024, BankersOnline OFAC Update.

Yesterday was Earth Day. FinCEN issued a reminder to financial institutions to remain vigilant in identifying and reporting suspicious activity related to environmental crimes. Environmental crimes frequently involve transnational criminal activity related to several of FinCEN’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) National Priorities, including corruption, fraud, human trafficking, and drug trafficking.

FinCEN has previously published resources to help stakeholders identify and combat environmental crimes and associated illicit financial activity. FinCEN’s December 2021 Financial Threat Analysis contains information on wildlife trafficking threat patterns and trend information identified in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data. FinCEN’s Notice FIN-2021-NTC4 provides financial institutions with specific Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filing instructions and highlights illicit financial activity related to several types of environmental crimes such as wildlife trafficking and illegal logging, fishing, or mining. SAR filings, along with effective implementation of BSA compliance requirements, are crucial to identifying and stopping environmental crimes and related money laundering.

On Friday, the Treasury Department reported that OFAC has imposed sanctions on two entities — Mount Hebron Fund and Shlom Asiraich — for their roles in establishing fundraising campaigns on behalf of Yinon Levi and David Chai Chasdai, two violent extremists who were sanctioned on February 1, 2024, in connection with violence in the West Bank.

Concurrently, the Department of State designated Ben Zion Gopstein, the founder and leader of Lehava, an organization whose members have engaged in destabilizing violence affecting the West Bank.

For identification information on the designated parties, see BankersOnline’s April 19, 2024, OFAC Update.

FinCEN has updated its Beneficial Ownership Information FAQs to include new questions and updated information about reporting companies, beneficial ownership through trusts, and access to beneficial ownership information, among other topics. New and updated FAQs carry an April 18, 2024, date.