Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating senior Houthi military officer Saleh Mesfer Alshaer, commander of the Houthi-controlled military logistics support organization, whom Houthi-controlled courts have designated as the “judicial custodian” of assets confiscated from opponents of the Houthis. Alshaer has overseen the Houthis’ seizure of property in Yemen valued at greater than 100 million dollars, using a variety of unlawful tactics, including extortion. Major General Saleh Mesfer Alshaer, a close ally of Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, serves as both the commander of the Houthi-controlled military logistics support organization, where he assisted the Houthis in acquiring smuggled weapons, as well as the officer responsible for managing all assets and funds confiscated by the Houthis. Alshaer has confiscated assets from Yemeni citizens by extorting and detaining those who do not comply. Alshaer has unlawfully forced banks, companies, and money exchange businesses to perform actions such as withdrawals and identification of customer assets. Those who have defied Alshaer have been detained and held indefinitely by the Houthi-controlled “National Security Bureau” and have been falsely labeled as spies.
During the first seven months of 2019, Alshaer oversaw the seizure of dozens of companies affiliated with anti-Houthi figures residing abroad, with assets valued at more than 100 million dollars. Alshaer oversaw the diversion and confiscation of funds from 35 Yemeni parliamentarians who were not aligned with the Houthis, which was ordered by the Houthi-controlled Specialized Criminal Court on September 14, 2019. These confiscated funds included revenues from projects funded by international organizations inside Yemen. Alshaer’s cronies have also intervened in multiple hospitals in the capital, Sana’a, replacing directors and staff, and appropriating more than half of those revenues. This pattern of coercion and extortion is intended to benefit only one group — the Houthis — and it demonstrates that they are engaged in the same types of activities they blame on their opponents.
Saleh Mesfer Alshaer is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13611 for having engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security, or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the agreement of November 23, 2011, between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power in Yemen, or that obstruct the political process in Yemen. The United States is taking this action in support of Alshaer’s designation by the UN Security Council’s Yemen Sanctions Committee on November 9, 2021.
On November 9, 2012, OFAC issued the Yemen Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 552 (the “Regulations”) (77 FR 67276, November 9, 2012), to implement Executive Order 13611 of May 16, 2012, “Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen” (77 FR 29533, May 18, 2012) (E.O. 13611). The Regulations were initially issued in abbreviated form for the purpose of providing immediate guidance to the public. OFAC is amending and reissuing the Regulations as a more comprehensive set of regulations that includes additional interpretive and definitional guidance, general licenses, statements of licensing policy, and other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public. Due to the number of regulatory sections being updated or added, OFAC is reissuing the Regulations in their entirety.
Executive Order 13611. On May 16, 2012, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701–1706) (IEEPA), issued E.O. 13611. In E.O. 13611, the President found that the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Yemen and others threaten Yemen's peace, security, and stability, including by obstructing the implementation of the agreement of November 23, 2011, between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power that meets the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Yemeni people for change, and by obstructing the political process in Yemen. The President further found that these actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
