With the Carnivale due for 17-21 February, the health ministry has urged the population to avoid excessive consumption of alcohol and to have a designated driver, and to have sex use the condom. All this as well as warning against too much exposure to the Summer sun and, of course, Covid-19 is still aorund in the background.
On 8 February, a Notice from HM Treasury advised that 28 entries have been amended on the Consolidated List and are still subject to an asset freeze, and that 4 entries have been corrected.
On 8 February, OFAC announced that it had sanctioned Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias aka “Alexander Mendoza”, aka “Porky”, an MS-13 gang leader based in Honduras, and David Elias Campbell Licona aka “Jorge Eduardo Perez Paz”, an MS-13 associate based in Nicaragua, pursuant to transnational criminal organisation authorities. Both individuals are heavily involved in drug trafficking, violence, murder, extortion, and money laundering. The Department of State’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program also announced a reward offer of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Yulan Adonay Archaga Carias.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1253
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20230208
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/20230208_archaga_carias_chart.pdf
On 7 February, an article from Insight Crime reported that the latest Basel Institute AML Index bookends its Americas’ rankings with 2 Caribbean islands while leaving the traditional organised crime havens in the middle of the pack. Haiti had the worst score in the region in terms of AML efforts as well as the second-worst in the world, behind only the DRC. Middle of the pack were Ecuador, Brazil, and Mexico. The small Caribbean island of Dominica had the region’s best overall score in the Basel index.
https://insightcrime.org/news/worst-best-anti-money-laundering-capabilities-atin-america/
On 7 February, OCCRP reported that nearly half of the medical products circulating in the Sahel might be substandard or falsified, undermining the already strained healthcare system and posing a severe threat to public health in the region. Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, known as the Sahel, are among the poorest countries in the world and their populations suffer from high incidence of malaria, pneumonia, cholera and other life-threatening diseases. According to the UN report, a lack of formal supply of medical products coupled with low purchasing power have given rise to an illicit pharmaceutical economy.
These Regulations insert an humanitarian exception to the provisions implementing the asset-freeze in a list of sanctions regulations, to replace the existing humanitarian exception. The exception provides that the prohibitions implementing the asset-freeze in the sanctions regimes mentioned above shall not apply in relation to activities carried out by a number of actors including the UN, its specialised agencies, or by international and NGO supporting UN humanitarian work which are necessary to ensure the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance or to support other activities that support basic human needs.
BIMCO has redrafted its 2015 2015 Infectious or Contagious Disease Clause for Time Charter Parties, providing more clarity for shipowners and charters when it comes to risk and costs obligations as a consequence of disruption and delay. It says that Covid-19 has been the latest outbreak in a list of contagious diseases that includes the Ebola virus in 2015 and severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. The likelihood is that equally serious strains of disease will continue to occur from time to time going forward.
On 8 February, a Notice from HM Treasury advised that 15 entries have been added to the consolidated list and are now subject to an asset freeze.
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