On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned entities in Iran and Russia that attempted to interfere with the 2024 election.
The two entities sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) include the Cognitive Design Production Center (CDPC) a subsidiary organization of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE), which directed and subsidized “the creation and publication of deepfakes and circulated disinformation about candidates in the U.S. 2024 general election.” CGE is a Moscow-based affiliate organization of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). The GRU is Russia’s largest foreign-intelligence agency.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. “The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
Last September 27, OFAC designated seven individuals working with Iran who had attempted to interfere with the 2024 election.
“The Kremlin has increasingly adapted its efforts to hide its involvement by developing a vast ecosystem of Russian proxy websites, fake online personas, and front organizations that give the false appearance of being independent news sources unconnected to the Russian state,” the Treasury Department noted.
“CGE built a server that hosts the generative AI tools and associated AI-created content, in order to avoid foreign web-hosting services that would block their activity,” the Treasury Department stated. “The GRU provided CGE and a network of U.S.-based facilitators with financial support to: build and maintain its AI-support server; maintain a network of at least 100 websites used in its disinformation operations.”
“As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked,” the Treasury Department concluded.
The week of the 2024 election, federal law enforcement officials foiled a second alleged Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.
The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against multiple individuals who were involved in plots to murder an Iranian dissident, two Jewish Americans, and Trump on U.S. soil.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”
No comments:
Post a Comment