U.S. Government Sanctions IRGC and GRU Affiliates for Attempted Election Interference

The Treasury Department has designated two organizations–one in Iran and one in Russia-for what it calls efforts “to stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election”. The move is the latest in a long series of such sanctions against state actors from the two countries. 

Key Details

• Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) designated the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, which works directly with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). The Russian organization was founded by Aleksandr Dugin, who was previously designated by OFAC. 

• The CDPC, which OFAC says is directly controlled by the IRGC, “planned influence operations designed to incite socio-political tensions among the U.S. electorate”. 

• The CGE allegedly subsidizes and oversees the production of deepfakes and circulated disinformation about various candidates leading up to the November elections in the U.S. “CGE personnel work directly with a GRU unit that oversees sabotage, political interference operations, and cyberwarfare targeting the West. Since at least 2024, a GRU officer and CGE affiliate directed CGE Director Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin (Korovin) and other CGE personnel to carry out various influence operations targeting the U.S. 2024 presidential election,” the Treasury statement says. 

• The CGE also allegedly used various AI tools and a broad network of websites designed to imitate legitimate news outlets in an effort to spread various pieces of disinformation. “The GRU provided CGE and a network of U.S.-based facilitators with financial support to: build and maintain its AI-support server; maintain a network of at least 100 websites used in its disinformation operations; and contribute to the rent cost of the apartment where the server is housed,” Treasury says.

• OFAC also designated Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin, a GRU officer and the director of CGE. 

Why It Matters: OFAC designations mean that any property or businesses in the U.S. that are owned or controlled by the designated organizations or people are blocked. It also means that U.S. persons cannot do any business with designated entities or people. In effect, an OFAC designation prevents the entities and people from doing any kind of business in the U.S.

OFAC has designated other GRU and IRGC members and affiliated entities in the past, mainly for offensive cyber operations against U.S. organizations. Although the sanctions restrict the designated people and entities from doing business or owning property in the U.S., they don’t have much of an effect in the home countries of those people and organizations, unfortunately.