Ermias GHERMAY

Ethiopia

1972 to 1977

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Male

Sabratha, Libya; Khartoum, Sudan; Tripoli, Libya

Drug cartel/Mafia

Ermias Ghermay (Ghermay) has been the head of an international migrant smuggling ring that stretches from East Africa to Europe via Libya for at least ten years.  Ghermay reportedly organized the voyage of the wooden boat carrying migrants that sank off Lampedusa, Italy, on October 3, 2013, resulting in the drowning deaths of 366 people, and in the aftermath Ghermay admitted that he did not give the migrants lifejackets.  In addition, Ghermay reportedly locked migrants in warehouses where they were repeatedly tortured and extorted for more money.  Ghermay has been living in Libya, and is a wanted person for his involvement in migrant smuggling and other illicit activities both in Libya and abroad.

US

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0409

2018-06-11

US

Executive Order 13726 of April 19, 2016 Blocking Property and Suspending Entry Into the United States of Persons Contributing to the Situation in Libya

OFAC country specific / UN

Libya

Blocking Property, Suspending Entry

E.O. 13726. On April 19, 2016, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, IEEPA and the United Nations Participation Act (22 U.S.C. 287c) (UNPA), issued E.O. 13726. In E.O. 13726, the President expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13566, finding that the ongoing violence in Libya, human rights abuses, violations of the arms embargo imposed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011), and misappropriation of Libya's natural resources threatened the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, democratic transition, and territorial integrity of Libya, and thereby constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

SDN