On May 14, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Russian national Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Beloglazov and three Russia-based entities for their alleged involvement in a sanctions evasion scheme for the benefit of Russian oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska, who was designated by OFAC in 2018. According to OFAC, the designees engaged in a scheme involving “an opaque and complex supposed divestment” in which they attempted to unfreeze more than $1.5 billion in frozen shares belonging to Deripaska by selling the shares to a European company. OFAC reported that the scheme in which the designees engaged was consistent with typologies included in a global advisory that was issued by the multilateral Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force in 2023.
The designations were imposed pursuant to Executive Order 14024 for operating in the financial services sector of the Russian economy or for being owned or controlled by one of the newly-designated entities. As a result of these designations, all property and interests in property of the designated persons within the United States or within the possession or control of a U.S. person are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions involving a designated person. Entities owned 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.