OFAC Sanctions the Networks Arming Sudan’s Civil War: Inside the June 2026 SDN Designations

On June 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added eight individuals and entities to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) for their part in the procurement and recruitment networks that keep Sudan’s civil war supplied. The targets sit in Sudan, India, Panama, and Colombia. None of them had to be Sudanese to land on the list, and that reach is the part worth paying attention to.

OFAC issued the designations under Executive Order 14098, the authority that reaches persons destabilizing Sudan, and it built the case on an investigation run jointly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center.

What OFAC Announced on June 26, 2026

The action goes after two separate networks arming opposite sides of the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it around the humanitarian toll, saying the “networks profiting from the conflict in Sudan jeopardize the prospects for the humanitarian truce that the Sudanese people desperately need.”

Three entities went onto the SDN List:

• Target Multiactivities Company Ltd (TMAC) — a Khartoum-based company that imported explosives for the SAF.
• SBL Energy Limited — an India-based explosives manufacturer that supplied TMAC.
• Ports Engineering Company Ltd — a Sudanese state-owned construction company that imported uniforms and weapons material.

Five individuals were designated alongside them: TMAC managing director Tariq Hussain Muhammad Madani, SBL Energy CEO Alok Choudhari, and three officers of a Panama-based recruiting company, Enrique Daniel Palacios Quintanilla, Jack Peter Derman Guzman, and Fredy Alejandro Lopez Ocampo.

The SAF Procurement Network

The first network supplies the Sudanese Armed Forces. It runs back to the Defense Industries System (DIS), Sudan’s largest defense enterprise, and its conglomerate Giad Industrial Group, also known as Sudan Master Technology. OFAC designated both DIS and Giad back on June 1, 2023.

The June 2026 action fills in the supply chain sitting underneath them:

• TMAC is controlled by DIS through Giad. With Madani running it as managing director, it imported explosives into Sudan from Egyptian and Indian suppliers for use in SAF bombs.
• SBL Energy, under CEO Alok Choudhari, supplied TMAC with more than 200 shipments of explosives and related material since 2024.
• Ports Engineering, part-owned by Giad, imported uniforms and footwear for Sudanese intelligence personnel from an Emirati company, plus ammunition belts and boxes of weapons from a Turkish company.

The Colombian Recruiting Network

The second network sends fighters to the RSF. Retired Colombian military officer Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra runs it with his wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, recruiting former Colombian soldiers to fight for the RSF. OFAC had already sanctioned that network in December 2025 and again in April 2026.

This time OFAC reached three people tied to Talent Bridge, S.A., a Panama-based company (formerly Global Staffing, S.A.) used to mask the recruiting operation. Palacios acted as a resident agent, director, and secretary; Derman was a director and treasurer before becoming president in July 2025; and Lopez, a secretary and director. OFAC designated all three as leaders or officials of a blocked entity.

How OFAC Reached Companies Outside Sudan

For a compliance officer, the legal theories are the part that matters. None of these designations turned on the target being Sudanese. OFAC used the same authorities it relies on across the board under E.O. 14098:

• Ownership and control. TMAC was designated as owned or controlled by DIS, and Ports Engineering as owned or controlled by Sudan Master Technology (Giad). That is the logic behind OFAC’s 50% Rule: any entity owned 50% or more by blocked persons is itself blocked, whether or not OFAC ever names it.
• Material support. SBL Energy, an Indian manufacturer, was designated for materially supporting TMAC by supplying it goods. A company need not sit in Sudan, or intend to break U.S. law, to get caught for providing goods or services to a blocked party.
• Leadership of a blocked entity. Madani, Choudhari, Palacios, Derman, and Lopez were each designated as leaders, officials, or senior executives of blocked companies.

The lesson for an Indian explosives maker or a Panamanian corporate services firm is blunt: deal with a sanctioned network and your company can end up on the SDN List, wherever it happens to be based.

What It Means to Be on the SDN List

Once OFAC lists a person or company, several things happen at once:

• All property is blocked. Any property or interests in property the designated person holds in the United States, or that a U.S. person possesses or controls, is frozen and must be reported to OFAC.
• The 50% Rule extends the block. Any entity owned 50% or more, individually or together, by blocked persons is blocked automatically as well.
• U.S. persons cannot transact. Without a license or exemption, U.S. persons are barred from nearly all dealings with the blocked party, including providing funds, goods, or services.
• Strict liability applies. OFAC can impose civil penalties on a strict liability basis, so a company can be penalized even where it never knew it was dealing with a blocked party.
• Secondary sanctions and facilitation risk reach foreign parties. Non-U.S. persons face exposure for causing U.S. persons to violate sanctions and for conduct that helps evade them.

If your funds or accounts were frozen over a designation like this, whether OFAC named you directly or the 50% Rule swept you in, the way out usually runs through an unblocking application or an OFAC license.

Getting Off the SDN List

OFAC’s press release gave nearly as much attention to getting off the list as to getting on it. The agency stressed that its power comes “not only from OFAC’s ability to designate and add persons” to the SDN List “but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law,” and it pointed readers to its guidance on filing a petition for removal.

That is the SDN List removal process, formally a petition for administrative reconsideration under 31 C.F.R. § 501.807. A designated party can put forward arguments and evidence showing either that the conduct behind the designation has stopped or that there was never a sufficient basis for the listing at all. As of mid-2026, OFAC routes those petitions through its new Reconsideration Portal.

For a company like SBL Energy, a credible delisting argument would have to show it has cut off shipments to TMAC and put controls in place to keep it from recurring. Someone designated over a role at a blocked company usually has to show they have left the position.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a non-U.S. company be added to the OFAC SDN List?

Yes. This action shows it plainly: OFAC designated an Indian manufacturer and Panamanian corporate officers, and it does so routinely. Once a foreign party is listed, its U.S. assets are blocked and U.S. persons are barred from dealing with it.

What is the OFAC 50% Rule?

Under the 50% Rule, any entity owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, by one or more blocked persons is itself blocked, even if OFAC never names it. That is how designating a parent like Giad reaches a subsidiary automatically.

How do I get removed from the SDN List after being designated?

You file a petition for administrative reconsideration with OFAC, generally through its Reconsideration Portal, showing that the basis for your designation no longer exists or never applied. A sanctions attorney can help build the evidentiary record these petitions require.

Talk to an OFAC Sanctions Attorney

The June 26, 2026 Sudan designations show how much ground OFAC can cover in one action: a manufacturer in India, corporate officers in Panama, and a construction firm in Sudan, all blocked on the same day. If you, your company, or a counterparty has been designated, blocked under the 50% Rule, or frozen out of the U.S. financial system, what you do in the first few weeks matters.

Sanctions Law Center is a Washington, DC firm focused on OFAC sanctions. We handle SDN List removal petitions, unblocking applications, OFAC licenses, and compliance counseling for clients around the world. Contact us for a confidential case evaluation.