OFAC Adds Banco Exterior de Cuba and Four State-Owned Enterprises to SDN List
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) updated its sanctions lists on September 3, 2026, adding one individual and five Cuban entities to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List under the Cuba sanctions program.
The newly designated individual is Fidel Ernesto Castro Calis, a Cuban national born in 1995. OFAC identifies him as linked to Alejandro Castro Espín.
The five newly designated entities are Banco Exterior de Cuba, Comercial CUPET S.A., Empresa de Servicios Comandante René Ramos Latour (also known as NICAROTEC), Empresa Importadora de Abastecimiento para el Petróleo (ABAPET), and Empresa Importadora y Abastecedora del Níquel (CEXNI). OFAC identifies Banco Exterior de Cuba as a financial institution and the other four as state-owned enterprises connected to fuel, petroleum-support, mining-support or import activities. The designations were made under the Cuba-related authority identified by OFAC as CUBA-EO14404.
General License 4A issued
OFAC also issued Cuba General License 4A, titled “Authorizing Transactions for Third-Country Diplomatic and Consular Missions in Cuba.” The action therefore combines new blocking designations with an amended licensing authorization for specified diplomatic and consular activity.
Russia-related removal
In the same September 3 action, OFAC removed Dulac Capital Ltd and its listed representative-office aliases from the SDN List. The removed entry had been listed under Russia-related Executive Order 14024 and carried a secondary-sanctions risk notation. The removal should be treated separately from the new Cuba designations and does not imply a broader change to the Russia sanctions program.
For sanctions-screening teams, the update requires refreshed SDN data and careful handling of the new Cuban names and aliases, while also ensuring that the removed Russia-related entry is no longer treated as currently designated solely on the basis of the prior listing.
