Kamlesh Mansukhlal Damji Pattni (Pattni) first came to global attention as a result of the infamous Goldenberg scandal in Kenya in the 1990s, wherein he was accused of manipulating Kenyan export incentives and corrupting senior Kenyan government officials. Although Pattni denied any wrongdoing, he fled Kenya and soon shifted his attention to Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, Pattni befriended then-President Robert Mugabe and reestablished a scheme similar to the one he ran in Kenya. Pattni, as featured in public reporting and elsewhere, has enlisted a range of couriers and supporters to engage in export incentive fraud and bribery to enable his illicit profiting from the exportation of gold and diamonds from Zimbabwe. Pattni and members of his network engaged in a scheme wherein they would generate cash via the sale of Zimbabwean natural resources in foreign jurisdictions. When Pattni and his network would return to Zimbabwe with the cash from the sale of the natural resources, they would overreport the amount of cash being brought back into the country, receive compensation on the overreported cash, and bribe government officials in Zimbabwe to receive protection for their illicit activity. Pattni then hid the profits behind a global network of companies often controlled by members of the network, including frontmen, facilitators, couriers, and other supporters.
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.
