On December 31, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated an Iran-based entity and a Russia-based entity for their efforts to interfere in the U.S. 2024 election. OFAC designated the Cognitive Design Production Center (“CDPC”), a subordinate organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”), and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (“CGE”), a Moscow-based affiliate organization of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (“GRU”). OFAC also designated Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin, the director of the CGE. According to OFAC, since at least 2023, the CDPC has planned influence operations designed to incite socio-political tensions among the U.S. electorate leading up to the 2024 U.S elections. Since at least 2024, Korovin and other CGE personnel have been reportedly directed by GRU officers and CGE affiliates to carry out various influence operations, including the circulation of deepfake publications and AI-generated disinformation about candidates in the U.S. 2024 election.
The new designations were imposed pursuant to Executive Order 13848 for engaging in, sponsoring, or being complicit in foreign malign influence in the 2024 U.S. election. Moscow-based CGE was additionally designated pursuant to EO 13694, as amended, EO 14024, and Section 224 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (“CAATSA”) for acting on behalf of the GRU, a person whose property and interests in properly are blocked pursuant to EO 13694, as amended, EO 14024, and section 224 of CAATSA. Korovin was additionally designated pursuant to EO 14024 for being a leader or official of the CGE, a person whose property and interest in property are blocked pursuant to EO 14024. 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.