Under the pretext of taking action against a Russian who allegedly tried to influence some US elections, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has targeted the considerable assets of Yevgeniy Prigozhin which include three aircraft and a yacht.

Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman and restauranteur known as "Putin's chef," finances the Internet Research Agency, a non-governmental organisation or NGO whose employees are also the subject of sanctions. OFAC says that this agency tried "to subvert American democratic processes." This is the first time that the US has imposed sanctions under Executive Order 13848 of September 2018, entitled “Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election.”

The Internet Research Agency, the Americans claim, used fictitious personae on social media and disseminated false information. This is standard practice for the US Government, as explained in Time Magazine's article of 1996, “Yanks to the Rescue – the secret story of how American advisors helped Yeltsin win.” On the subject of NGOs, Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote in the Huffington Post in 2017: "There are several ostensibly non-governmental organisations”, most notably the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, that exist supposedly to help educate populations in newly democratic countries about the mechanics and virtues of democracy. The reality is that they fund and help train political factions that are deemed friendly to the United States, and specifically to Washington’s foreign policy...such organizations receive federal funds and are hardly free of influence from US officials."

The Treasury Department is also imposing sanctions on six members of the Internet Research Agency. These are Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov (Aslanov), Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik (Burchik), Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev (Podkopaev), Vladimir Dmitriyevich Venkov (Venkov), Igor Vladimirovich Nesterov (Nesterov), and Denis Igorevich Kuzmin (Kuzmin).

Prigozhin was previously sanctioned by EO 13694, as amended, last year. He was also sanctioned by EO 13661 in December 2016 for "materially assisting senior officials of the Russian Federation," which apparently was a faux pas at the time. The Americans allege that he uses a series of front companies to manage his luxury personal property. Beratex Group Limited (Beratex), an entity registered in the Seychelles, owns and operates a private jet that until just recently flew under the tail number M-VITO. Since 2014 Beratex has also owned a yacht called St Vitamin, which Prigozhin’s family has used on holidays, as evidenced by photographs posted on social media. The Americans say that Prigozhin also owns and uses VP-CSP, a private jet registered in the Cayman Islands. Since 2017, Linburg Industries, a company incorporated in the Seychelles, has been the jet's registered owner and operator. Last year, according to the US Treasury, Prigozhin’s employees arranged for the purchase of M-SAAN, a private jet registered in the Isle of Man whose registered owner and operator is Autolex Transport Ltd, a company incorporated in the Seychelles. Autolex is being sanctioned or 'blocked.' Also - and this is for banks to find out for themselves - any entities that are more than half-owned by one or more of these targeted people are also blocked.