OFAC Sanctions Syrian Oligarch, Entities

Treasury’s Office of Foreign assets Control sanctioned 16 people and entities, including Syrian oligarch Samer Foz, to cut off “critical supplies and financiers” for Syria's “luxury reconstruction and investment efforts," Treasury said in a June 11 press release. Treasury said Foz has “been profiting heavily front reconstruction efforts” in Syria by building luxury developments on land seized by Syria.

The U.S.-imposed sanctions come several months after the European Union sanctioned Foz and 15 other individuals and entities for exploiting their ties to the government, “including through joint ventures formed with regime-­backed companies to develop land expropriated from persons displaced by the conflict in Syria,” the press release said. Foz used several companies to do this, including Aman Holding, which worked with state-owned Damascus Cham PJSC to form a company named Aman Damascus, Treasury said, which is also being sanctioned. Aman Damascus was awarded a contract by Syria to build skyscrapers and housing properties valued at $312 million, Treasury said.

In addition to Aman Damascus, Aman Holding serves as an “umbrella for over a dozen different ventures,” Treasury said. Some of the companies are co-owned by Foz’s siblings, Amer Foz and Husen Foz, who are also being sanctioned. Treasury specifically named a company owned by the Foz siblings, United Arab Emirates-based ASM International General Trading, which is being sanctioned. ASM trades in food commodities such as grain and sugar and operates in the oil sector in “oilfield services, drilling products, and supplies to the oil and natural gas industry.”

“Treasury is committed to holding accountable profiteers who enrich the coffers of the Assad regime while Syrian civilians suffer this man-made humanitarian crisis,” Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said in a statement.