Office of Foreign Assets Control

The Office of Foreign Assets Control is the office of the United States Department of the Treasury that administers economic sanctions programs and publishes the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, on which designated persons and entities are entered and their property under American jurisdiction blocked.¹²

Origins

The National Archives' guide to the office's records traces it to Foreign Funds Control, "established as a unit of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to Executive Order 8389, April 10, 1940, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act (40 Stat. 411), October 6, 1917, as amended." Foreign Funds Control was given "separate bureau status on September 11, 1942," administered the wartime blacklist of blocked nationals, and was "abolished by Treasury Department Order No. 86 on July 10, 1947." "The Division of Foreign Assets Control was established in the Office of International Finance by Treasury Department order on December 17, 1950." According to the office, the division was created after Chinese intervention in the Korean War, when President Harry Truman declared a national emergency and Chinese and North Korean assets were blocked, and it was renamed the Office of Foreign Assets Control in 1962.¹

The Government Accountability Office reported that since 2004 the office has operated within Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, alongside the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.³

Executive Order 13224

President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13224, "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism," on September 23, 2001; it was published in the Federal Register on September 25, 2001. The order relies on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act and section 5 of the United Nations Participation Act of 1945.⁴ According to the Department of State, "Designations are made by the Department of State or by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control," and designees are entered on the office's list.⁵ A person so designated is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

Executive Order 13886 of 2019 amended the order. The State Department described the amendment as "the most significant expansion of federal terrorist sanctions designation authorities since 9/11," which "empowers the State Department to designate groups and individuals that have participated in training to commit acts of terrorism, as well as persons determined to be leaders of such groups."⁶

Russian Imperial Movement

In April 2020 the State Department designated the Russian Imperial Movement and its leaders Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valiullovich Gariyev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, "the first time in history the Department has designated a white supremacist terrorist group." The release stated that the movement had "two training facilities in St. Petersburg" and that Gariyev headed "RIM's paramilitary arm, the Imperial Legion."⁶

The Office of Foreign Assets Control made its own designations on June 15, 2022, under "section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224, as amended by Executive Order 13886," naming Stanislav Shevchuk and Alexander Zhuchkovsky, both linked to the movement, and the Swedish national Anton Thulin.⁷⁸

Terrorgram Collective

On January 13, 2025, "the Department of State is designating The Terrorgram Collective (Terrorgram) and three of its leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended." The three were Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira, "a Terrorgram channel administrator" residing in Brazil; Noah Licul, "a senior member of Terrorgram" residing in Croatia; and Hendrik-Wahl Muller, a channel administrator residing in South Africa.⁹ The designations were published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2025, and entered on the office's list; Ferreira was assigned SDN entry 52486.¹⁰

The office has made no listing for The Base, the American accelerationist group, or its founder Rinaldo Nazzaro.¹¹