28JUL

OFAC clears 18 duplicates from the list

1 min read

09:28UTC

The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed 18 duplicate entries from the US sanctions list on 27 July. The underlying designations are unchanged.

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Key takeaway

OFAC deleted 18 duplicate sanctions records on 27 July; every designation behind them stands.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the US Treasury unit that administers American sanctions, removed 18 duplicate entries from its Specially Designated Nationals list on Monday 27 July as part of a modernisation exercise¹. Every underlying designation stays in force².

The SDN list is the register banks, insurers and shipping brokers screen against before they move money or accept cargo, and duplicates in it produce false matches that compliance teams then have to clear by hand. Removing them changes what a screening engine returns; it changes nothing about who is sanctioned.

The distinction is worth holding onto in a week when a delisting could be read as a concession. Treasury designated a network of Iranian firms linked to the oil trader Babak Zanjani under Executive Order 13902 on 24 July ; that was policy, aimed at named companies. Deleting duplicate rows three days later is maintenance on the register those designations sit in.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency that manages sanctions lists, removed 18 duplicate entries from its Iran-related sanctions list on 27 July. This was routine list cleaning, not a policy change: the people and entities still under sanctions remain sanctioned, only the duplicate paperwork entries were deleted.

Sources:US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control·US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control

Mentions:OFAC →Babak Zanjani →Executive Order 13902 →US Treasury →Iran →

First Reported In

Update #163 · Pentagon puts four dead back, renames war

US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control· 28 Jul 2026

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