Today, January 8, 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) added approximately 30 individuals and entities to its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (the “SDN List”) due to their engagement in corrupt currency exchange transactions which enriched themselves by at least $2.4 billion at the expense of Venezuela’s citizens.  These sanctioned persons include two former Venezuelan National Treasurers – Claudia Patricia Diaz Guillen (“Diaz”) and Alejandro Jose Andrade Cedeno (“Andrade”) – who authorized a Venezuelan businessman named Raul Antonio Gorrin Belisario (“Gorrin”) to convert Venezuelan bolivars into U.S. dollars at highly favorable exchange rates at currency exchange houses under his control.  Gorrin then shared the resulting excess currency conversion profits with Diaz and Andrade by engaging in deceptive practices to purchase a wide variety of properties, aircraft and other luxury assets on behalf of Diaz, Andrade, their family members and their other business associates.  The Treasury Department published a diagram which explains the scheme in further detail.