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Enforcement Release: September 30, 2022
OFAC Settles with Tango Card, Inc. for $116,048.60 Related to Apparent Violations of Multiple Sanctions Programs
Tango Card, Inc. (Tango Card), a Seattle, Washington-based company that supplies and distributes electronic rewards, has agreed to pay $116,048.60 to settle its potential civil liability for apparent violations of multiple U.S. sanctions programs. As a result of deficient geolocation identification processes, Tango Card transmitted at least 27,720 stored value products to individuals with Internet Protocol (IP) and email addresses associated with Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and the Crimea region of Ukraine. The settlement amount reflects a determination by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that Tango Card’s apparent violations were non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed, and further reflects Tango Card’s cooperation with OFAC and remedial measures implemented after discovery of the apparent violations.
Description of the...
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1) This appears to be the first enforcement action related to "stored value cards" since the 2008 Voipescrow Inc. (Iran) case. The legal basis for the violations is straightforward, with "services" having been exported to the sanctioned jurisdictions no different than they would have been deemed to have been exported if Tango Card were an ordinary payment processor.
2) TLD ASSOCIATED WITH EMAIL ADDRESSES AS A "REASON TO KNOW" OR "IN OR ORDINARILY RESIDENT IN" STATUS?
OFAC has, on several occasions, made it relatively clear that when an person receives internet services using an IP address associated with a sanctioned destination, that person is presumed to be in or ordinarily resident in the destination. Refer generally to General Note on the "Ordinarily Resident" Test for IEEPA-Based...