A Turkish national was arrested in Miami on 2 November for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions as part of a scheme of oil transportation from Venezuela for the benefit of Petróleos de Venezuela.
The Turkish national was arrested as he attempted to depart the United States to return to Turkey. He is charged by complaint with one count of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division stated that allegedly the defendant conspired to evade U.S. sanctions imposed on PdVSA, deploying deception to smuggle black-market oil from Venezuela.
According to the complaint, he conspired with others to cause U.S. financial institutions to process transactions connected to the transport of Venezuelan oil for the benefit of PdVSA, which the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated as a Specially Designated National (SDN) in January 2019.
Furthermore, according to the complaint the scheme included obfuscating the identities of tankers moving the oil by re-naming and re-flagging vessels, covering vessel names with paint or blankets, and turning off the electronics that track vessels’ locations for the safety of ships and their crews.
The defendant and his co-conspirators allegedly received tens of millions of dollars from PdVSA in payment for transporting Venezuelan oil, and hid the ultimate beneficiaries of the related transactions from U.S. financial institutions, who then unwittingly processed payments in furtherance of the scheme.
We remain dedicated to prosecuting violations of these sanctions until the government of Venezuela takes the necessary steps for these sanctions to be lifted.
…said Matthew Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Homeland Security Investigations Washington D.C. is investigating the case.
