179FR920098004 D, National ID No.;
DA0002236, Passport
Official reason
Karim Keita (Keita) is the son of former Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and the former president of the Security and Defense Commission of Mali’s National Assembly. Keita oversaw Mali’s defense spending from February 2014 until August 2020, when the military overthrew his father. Keita allegedly used his position to receive bribes, assign contracts to affiliates who subsequently paid him kickbacks, and embezzle government funds by overpaying on contracts for materiel. Through his father, Keita allegedly arranged to remove from their positions officials who did not support his corruption. Keita also ostensibly arranged bribes to support his father’s re-election. After his father was ousted, Keita fled to Cote d’Ivoire, where he serves as the CEO of Konijane Strategic Marketing.
OFAC is designating Keita pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who is a current or former government official, or person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or is 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. OFAC is also designating Cote d’Ivoire-based Konijane Strategic Marketing for being owned or controlled by Keita.
Separately, Keita is also alleged to have arranged the abduction, torture, and apparent murder of Birama Toure (Toure), a reporter who was investigating Keita’s involvement in corruption. Multiple witnesses claim to have seen Toure at a prison run by Mali’s intelligence service with clear signs of having been brutally tortured. At least one witness claimed to have seen Toure’s apparently lifeless body removed from the prison in Keita’s presence. Keita purportedly pressured a lawyer not to take up Toure’s case, while another witness claimed Toure had told him in prison that Toure had been arrested on Keita’s orders.
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.
