US, Canada announce new sanctions against Belarus-linked companies, individuals

April 15, Pozirk. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed an asset freeze on 12 Belarus-linked entities and 10 individuals and prohibited US entities from dealing with them.

Canada has also imposed sanctions on 21 individuals who are involved or complicit in ongoing human rights violations in Belarus since the fraudulent presidential election of 2020.

The US action builds on sanctions imposed in response to Belarus’ fraudulent August 2020 election, as well as Alaksandar Łukašenka’s support for Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it said.

The individuals and entities include six revenue-generating state-owned enterprises and one entity and five individuals involved in facilitating transactions for a US-designated major Belarusian defense sector enterprise.

OFAC is additionally targeting five entities and five individuals involved in a global arms network doing business with a US-designated Belarusian defense firm.

“The authoritarian Lukashenka regime continues to rely on revenue from its SOEs to fund its violent suppression of its citizens and to circumvent U.S. sanctions,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson.

“We will continue to leverage our broad suite of tools to target Belarus’ extensive illicit facilitation networks and hold the regime accountable for its complicity in, and profiteering from, Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine.”

Concurrent with today’s actions by Treasury, the Department of Justice charged two principals of the now-designated Iraq-based arms company Black Shield Company for General Trading LLC, the now-designated Mohamad Deiry and Samer Rayya, with conspiring to unlawfully export weapons and ammunition from the United States to Sudan.

Deiry and Rayya remain at large and wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Today’s designations also coincide with a separate sanctions action against Belarus by the government of Canada.

The targeted companies include AAT Stankahomiel, a machine tool building state-owned company based in Homiel that regularly collaborates across various Belarusian and Russian industries.

In 2023, AAT Stankahomiel signed contracts with US-designated Russian defense firms Kalashnikov Concern and Almaz-Antey to provide material support to their operations.

AAT AGAT Control Systems, another designee, sells control systems for the Belarusian Armed Forces, industrial computers, navigation and video surveillance systems. AGAT was designated by Canada for a grave breach of international peace and security.

AGAT is the management company for four entities located in Belarus that OFAC is also designating: AT NIIEVM, AT Communication Equipment, AT AGAT-System, and LLC InnoTech Solutions.

In cooperation with partner enterprises in Russia, AT NIIEVM is involved in air defense radio-technical facilities, air defense missile systems, mobile systems of electromagnetic warfare, reconnaissance control and radio jamming systems.

AT Communication Equipment specializes in the production of modern radio communication and telecommunication equipment, including products for uniformed services, and HF and VHF transceivers for civil and military use.

AT AGAT-System is a leading organization for the development of special radio and wired communication systems in the Belarusian market.

LLC InnoTech Solutions is a software development company with a special permit from the Belarusian government for technical and/or cryptographic information protection and design, creation and audit of information security systems of critical informatization objects.

AAT Pielenh is a leading design enterprise in the Belarusian optoelectronic industry and is one of Russia’s most important industrial suppliers in Belarus.

OFAC designated Pielenh, a supplier of fire-control systems for major lines of Russian tanks and a developer of sights with thermal imagers, on December 2, 2021.

Shenzhen 5G High-Tech Innovation Co., Limited (Shenzhen 5G) is a China-based entity that serves as an intermediary for Pielenh, OFAC said.

OFAC designated Shenzhen 5G for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Pielenh.

It also designated Aleh Jurčyk, director general of Shenzhen 5G; Alaksandra Aksiančuk, production director at Shenzhen 5G; Dźmitryj Braim, deputy director general for production at Pielenh; Siarhiej Čarhejka, head of Pielenh’s Planning and Dispatch Department; Dźmitryj Michalcoŭ, technical director of US-designated AAT BiełOMO

OFAC also targeted Belarus-supplied grey arms network.

Since at least 2015, Black Shield Company for General Trading LLC (Black Shield), an ostensibly Iraq-based arms company led by Lebanon-based Samer Rayya and Syrian Mohamad Majd Deiry, has acquired and sold arms used in conflicts around the world, including from key Belarusian defense company AAT Kidma Tech, an entity designated by OFAC on December 2, 2021.

The Black Shield network specializes in buying and selling weapons and materiel, ranging from ammunition, small arms, specialized sniper equipment and silencers, to armored vehicles, tanks, military helicopters, artillery, surface to air missiles and anti-tank missiles.

The network uses intermediary and front companies such as Centuronic Ltd (Centuronic) and S. Group Airlines Ltd, both located in Cyprus, and Rayya Danişmanlik Hizmetleri Limited Şirketi (Rayya Danismanlik), located in Turkiye, to conduct their business, OFAC said.

OFAC designated Black Shield; Rayya and Deiry; Alhaitham Al Ali, a Slovak citizen and arms dealer who has acted as a middleman for Black Shield in its arms deals; Tatyana Protopovich, director of Centuronic Ltd; Phoenix Lines S.R.O., a Slovakia-based company fully owned by Alhaitham; and Nora Yagmur, a person involved in attempts to procure arms.

OFAC warned that any financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action.

Meanwhile, Canada has designated Belarusian individuals who have been involved or complicit in arbitrary arrests and detentions, brutality, intimidation and excessive use of force against Belarusians who protested the fraudulent elections, as well as their ill treatment once they were falsely tried, sentenced and imprisoned, its government said in a statement.