Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento (Nascimento) and Manuel Helder Vieira Dias Junior (Dias Junior) are former government officials that stole billions of dollars from the Angolan government through embezzlement. Nascimento and Dias Junior colluded with other Angolan individuals and Treasury-designated Sam Pa to misappropriate funding intended for infrastructure development projects, including the use of phantom projects. Pa was designated on April 17, 2014 for undermining democratic processes and institutions in Zimbabwe, facilitating public corruption by Zimbabwean senior officials through illicit diamond deals, and providing financial and logistical support to the Government of Zimbabwe and Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs). The two are also suspected of siphoning off millions of dollars from Angolan infrastructure projects and then using their positions in the Angolan economy to protect themselves from the possibility of criminal charges. As part of a military equipment deal, Dias Junior brokered with a third-country defense manufacturer an additional large sum of money for other senior Angolan government officials.
Nascimento and Dias Junior are designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being foreign persons who are current or former government officials, or persons acting for or on behalf of such an official, who are responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
