Jun

11

Cigars of Mass Destruction

Posted by at 3:26 pm on June 11, 2007
Category: Cuba Sanctions • OFAC

Which One Is More Dangerous?Last week the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) released its monthly summary of penalties imposed by the agency.

In one case the agency levied a fine of $31,336 and in another the fine was $2800. One of those two cases involved violation of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations and the other involved violation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Control Regulations. Guess which one got the bigger fine.

If you guessed the Cuba case, you win the cigar (Honduran, of course). Acme Furniture got the $31,336 fine for shipping furniture from China to Cuba. Hecny Transportation got the smaller fine for dealing with goods produced by a foreign person designated under the WMD Control Regulations.

Three of the other cases reported by OFAC involved a perennial favorite of the OFAC enforcement staff: people who buy Cuban cigars over the Internet. One particularly dangerous cigar purchaser was fined $2304, only a few dollars less than it cost Hecny to deal with a designated purveyor of WMD. To paraphrase Kipling, a bomb is only a bomb, but a good cigar is a smoke!

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Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)

One Comment:

A couple of weeks ago the governor of California was in Canada where he bought a cigar. Some reporter aware of the sanctions tracked the sale and it was alleged that it was a Cuban cigar (even mentioned brand name). The governor’s office could find no receipt and of course there was no evidence since the cigar itself was up in smoke. Do you think they’ll go after him?

Comment by Linda on June 11th, 2007 @ 4:52 pm