The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week issued new General License 42, which authorizes certain transactions involving the IV Venezuelan National Assembly, its “Delegated Commission,” any entity established by the assembly to “exercise its mandate,” or “any person appointed or designated by, or whose appointment or designation is retained by” such an entity. Those transactions include any that are “ordinarily incident and necessary to the negotiation of settlement agreements” involving any debt of the Venezuelan government, its state-owned energy company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., or any entity PdVSA owns 50% or more.

Cryptocurrency trading platform Poloniex reached a $7.5 million settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control this week to resolve allegations that it violated U.S. sanctions. The Delaware-based company allowed customers in sanctioned jurisdictions to trade, deposit and withdraw digital assets worth a combined $15 million, OFAC said, adding that Poloniex didn’t voluntarily disclose the alleged violations.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned seven people and 19 Mexican companies for their ties to a drug trafficking cartel, including Eduardo Pardo Espino, a fugitive of U.S. trafficking charges. OFAC said the people and companies have ties to a timeshare fraud led by the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which has been targeted by previous sanctions measures (see 2303020047, 2207110011|, [Ref:2206020077, 2110060017 and 2202180011).

The departments of Treasury and State this week sanctioned Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization, along with four of its senior officials, for their role in taking hostages and wrongfully detaining U.S. nationals. The sanctions are the first issued under the authority established last year by Executive Order 14078, which allows for sanctions against hostage-takers (see 2207190045).

New York lawyer Robert Wise pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to make around $3.8 million in payments to maintain six real properties in the U.S. owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Wise pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit international money laundering and faces a maximum of five years in prison, DOJ said April 25. He also forfeited more than $3.7 million and agreed "to be satisfied" by a $210,441 payment.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a notice this week correcting several errors in its sanctions regulations. The changes correct a “typographical error” in the Iranian Transactions and two typographical errors in its Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations. OFAC also said the license incorporates one general license into the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations. The changes take effect April 27.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week published previously issued Syrian Sanctions Regulations General License 22. The notice includes the full text of the license.

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A British cigarette manufacturer agreed to pay American authorities more than $635 million to settle alleged sanctions violations after the U.S. said the company illegally sent tobacco and tobacco products to North Korea. British American Tobacco will pay about $508 million to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency's largest fine in more than four years, and pay an additional fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ.

The U.S. this week sanctioned three people for supporting North Korea through “illicit financing and malicious cyber activity,” the Office of Foreign Assets Control said. Wu Huihui is a China-based based virtual currency trader who helps convert virtual currency stolen by North Korean “actors” working with the U.S.-sanctioned Lazarus Group (see 1909130039), and Cheng Hung Man is a Hong Kong based virtual currency trader who works with Wu to “remit payment to companies in exchange for virtual currency.” OFAC also sanctioned China-based Sim Hyon Sop for working for U.S.-sanctioned Korea Kwangson Banking Corp. (see 1907230027) and coordinating “millions of dollars in financial transfers” for North Korea.