Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal (Al-Cardinal) and Kur Ajing Ater (Ajing) for their involvement in bribery, kickbacks and procurement fraud with senior government officials. Ajing is a South Sudanese businessman who has bribed key officials in the Government of South Sudan in order to maintain influence and access to the South Sudanese oil market. Ajing used these bribes to both curry favor with a senior gatekeeper within the Government of South Sudan and to ensure the silence and compliance of a key government officials. In late 2018, the South Sudanese government made a large cash payment to Ajing. While the official reason was for the payment of food, the money instead went directly to a senior South Sudanese government official. In addition, Ajing has been obligated large amounts of oil by the Government of South Sudan, and has given money and vehicles to government officials in return. Ajing has claimed to have paid senior officials millions of dollars and has cooperated with the request of a senior official to route oil payments in cash rather than through official bank accounts. Further, Ajing was the recipient of a multi-year contract to purchase food for the South Sudanese military, and in return, paid a percentage of the contract back to a senior South Sudanese government official. According to public media reports, Ajing received millions of dollars in contracts for the South Sudanese military, including one contract that alone exceeds the total amount budgeted for the military’s goods and services for the year by a factor of ten.
Ajing is being designated for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have 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. One company owned or controlled by Ajing was also designated today: Lou Trading and Investment Company Limited.
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.
