FROM A
DIFFERENT ANGLE by Kenneth Rijock
Financial Crime Consultant, for World-Check
US commences designating Venezuelans
18 June 2008

The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has named two Venezuelan nationals, and their two controlled businesses, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, alleging that they are fundraisers and facilitators for Hizballah. OFAC states that one of the individuals named has travelled to Iran, whilst the other has been a diplomat in Syria and Lebanon. This is understood to be merely the first recent OFAC designation of Venezuelan nationals and entities.

Those named are:

  • Ghazi Nasr Al Din - Believed to use his position of president of the Caracas-based Shi'a Islamic Centre to provide terrorist financing to Hizballah, and who has facilitated the travel of Hizballah operatives to Venezuela.
  • Fawzi Kan'an - A "significant providers of financial support to Hizballah," he has trained in Iran with other Hizballah members.
  • Biblios Travel C.A. - Has reportedly been used to courier  funds to Hizballah in Lebanon.
  •  Hilal Travel Agency - Another suspected Hizballah conduit.

Reliable sources close to the US State Department have advised that:

  • Today's OFAC press release is the first of five notices that will contain the names of Venezuelan nationals and companies involved in money laundering as well as terrorist financing. Subsequent releases are believed to be imminent.
  •  Prominent individuals in Venezuela's banking community, its financial institutions, insurance companies, and casas de cambio have been reportedly been targeted.
  • Financial institutions proven to have been involved in sending funds to the FARC are understood to ultimately receive especially harsh treatment for terrorist financing.

If this is the long-awaited first round in the American imposition of blanket OFAC sanctions against Venezuelan nationals and their companies, then compliance officers should be watching closely for subsequent notices. 

 

 

 

 

The facts and opinions stated in this article are those of the author and not those of World-Check. World-Check does not warrant the accuracy of any facts and opinions stated in this article, does not endorse them, and accepts no responsibility for them.

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