On May 25, 2023, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov, a Russian national who is the head of the Russian private military company Wagner Group and its mercenary units in Mali. According to OFAC, Maslov was designated for leading the mercenary units in Mali and for his role as the group’s principal administrator responsible for securing living accommodations for forces deployed to Mali and arranging meetings between government officials from several African nations and Wagner Group leaders Viktorovich Prigozhin and Dmmitriy Valeryevich Utkin.
OFAC reports that Maslov was designated pursuant to Executive Order 14024 for acting on behalf of the Wagner Group, an entity first designated by OFAC in June 2017 under EO 13660, for engaging in actions that threaten the peace and security of Ukraine and then re-designated by the US State Department in November 2022 under EO 14024, for operating in the defense-related materiel sector of the Russian economy. More recently, on January 26, 2023, the Wagner Group was once again designated by OFAC, this time pursuant to EO 13581, as amended by EO 13863, for being a foreign person that constitutes a significant transnational criminal organization engaged in serious criminal activity, including mass execution and rape in the Central African Republic (“CAR”) and Mali, and also pursuant to EO 13667 for engaging in human rights violations involving actions that targeted women, children and civilians with acts of violence in the CAR. In addition to these US sanctions, the Wagner Group has been sanctioned by authorities in Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the EU.
As a result of this designation, all property and interests in property of this designee within the United States or within the possession or control of a US person are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions involving the designated persons. In addition, entities owned 50 percent or more by one or more designated persons are also blocked, unless they are exempt or transactions are authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC.