Sanctions Evasion Reference

Designations feed

A rolling, machine-readable record of additions to and removals from sanctions lists, published by the issuing authority and republished by aggregators.

reviewed

2026-08-20

Authorities publish changes as they happen: OFAC through Recent Actions and its list service, the EU through the Official Journal, the UN through committee press releases. Aggregators such as the US Consolidated Screening List bundle several sources into one endpoint.

The feed matters analytically because designations are dated. Knowing precisely when a party became restricted is what makes it possible to say whether a transaction was lawful at the time, and it is the backbone of the enforcement chronologies on this site.

Where this term is used

  • How is correspondent banking used to evade sanctions? — Using a chain of banks that each know only their own customer, so that a payment for a restricted party reaches a currency it could not access directly, without any bank in the chain seeing the whole transaction.
  • What is a front company? — A front company is a business that trades normally but exists largely to hide another party's involvement in its transactions. The real activity is the cover; the concealed party is the point.
  • How is cryptocurrency used to evade sanctions? — Settling obligations in virtual assets so that value moves without a correspondent bank, a payment message or a screening system in the path, and without any institution able to block it in transit.

Related terms

  • Designation — The formal act of adding a person, entity, vessel or aircraft to a sanctions list, which triggers the restrictions attached to that programme.
  • Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List — The principal United States sanctions list. Property of anyone on it is blocked and US persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
  • Screening — Automated comparison of names, identifiers and other transaction data against sanctions lists and internal watchlists, at onboarding and on each payment.

Sources

  1. Recent Actions. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, 2026.
  2. Consolidated Screening List. U.S. International Trade Administration, 2026.
  3. Consolidated list of persons, groups and entities subject to EU financial sanctions. European Commission, 2026.

All glossary terms