The US Treasury Department is scrubbing roughly 80 names from its sanctions blacklist. The entries being removed include dead people, companies that no longer exist, and other designations that have long outlived their usefulness.
The action targets the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list, maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
What the SDN list actually does
Every bank, broker, exchange, and money transmitter in the US is legally required to screen transactions against it. If a name matches, the transaction gets frozen.
The list currently contains thousands of entries: individuals, shell companies, vessels, even crypto wallet addresses. When a name sits on that list, it effectively cuts the designated party off from the US dollar system.
