Avenida Canadones Chaquenos Numero 23, Barrio Obrero, Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay
Reg. ID
3379699-8, RUC #;
3379699, Passport
Official reason
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three Paraguayan individuals, Kassem Mohamad Hijazi, Khalil Ahmad Hijazi, and Liz Paola Doldan Gonzalez, for their roles in corruption in Paraguay, as well as five associated entities connected with their corruption schemes. One of Kassem’s associates in the TBA, Liz Paola Doldan Gonzalez (Doldan), was also identified as an intermediary who works with shipments from the United States; intermediaries pay bribes to port workers, despachantes, and Paraguayan customs officials to process imports and exports through Paraguayan customs. In 2008–09, the then-General Director of Paraguayan Customs increased and formalized a system of bribes, wherein intermediaries had to pay Paraguayan customs officials, a system which ensured that every customs official was paid.
In July 2019, as a part of “Operation Phone Call,” Doldan and her network were the targets of the Paraguayan Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s office. This office, in coordination with the Economic Crimes Special Unit, the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, and the Smuggling Prevention Unit, conducted 15 raids simultaneously in Ciudad del Este and Asuncion, Paraguay. These raids aimed to dismantle an alleged scheme whereby high-end electronics were imported from the United States and subsequently undervalued in their tax declarations to evade taxes.
Doldan used her company based in Paraguay, Mobile Zone International Import-Export S.R.L. (Mobile Zone), to purchase goods from a company based in Miami, Florida, which would subsequently send these goods to several shell companies in Paraguay. As the goods would enter the country destined for these shell companies, Paraguayan Customs would identify the cell phones as cheaper goods, such as printers and printer toner, to simulate the importation of lower-cost items, a practice that would allow Mobile Zone to pay less tax on the imports. According to press reporting, this scheme generated at least $675 million.
Doldan is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, 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.
