US Treasury sanctions individuals for helping Belarus, Russia circumvent sanctions

February 2, BPN. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 22 individuals and entities in various countries on February 1.

They are reportedly linked to a network set up to help Russian and Belarusian military-industrial complexes evade sanctions.

“Russia’s desperate attempts to utilize proxies to circumvent US sanctions demonstrate that sanctions have made it much harder and costlier for Russia’s military-industrial complex to re-supply [Vladimir] Putin’s war machine,” said Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury.

The US authorities reported the discovery of a Russian sanctions evasion network led by Russia- and Cyprus-based arms dealer Igor Zimenkov.

Members of the network, including Zimenkov’s son Jonatan and business partner Alexander Volfovich, reportedly registered a number of companies in Singapore, Bulgaria, Israel and Cyprus to evade sanctions.

Zimenkov also helped Bielspiecznieštechnika (Rus: Belspetsvneshtekhnika or BSVT), a Belarusian state-owned defense company currently under sanctions, to sell its products in Latin America, the OFAC said.

Its reports also mention sanctioned Belarusian businessman Alaksandr Zajcaŭ whose business partner allegedly is Marks Blats, “a high-level Zimenkov network associate.”

The US sanctioned both Zajcaŭ and Bielspiecznieštechnika on February 24, 2022 over Belarus’ complicity in Russia’s war on Ukraine.