Mr. Sanctions

Category: AI Corner

  • Half the battle is the reformatting

    Here’s Wednesday’s designations, with some fixes to my understanding of the format (unlike other formats, the field name/label in OFAC listings are not really differentiated by formatting or separator character), as well as some reformatting so it’s easier on the eyes to tease apart the various sections, listings and fields:

    Venezuela-related Designations

    Treasury Press Release: Treasury Targets Oil Traders Engaged in Sanctions Evasion for Maduro Regime

    Additions:

    The following entities have been added to OFAC’s SDN List:

    [VENEZUELA-EO13850] – Executive Order 13850 – Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela

    ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LTD

    AKAs: ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LIMITED

    • Address: Room 2611, 26th Floor, Southeast Technology R&D Center, 438, Jincheng Lu, Xiaoshan Qu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
    • Address: Rm A 20/F ZJ 300, 300 LOCKHART RD, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, China
    • Identification Number: IMO 0052971
    • Registration Number: 76957722 (Hong Kong) issued 19 Aug 2024

    Based on the Treasury press release, this entity was designated for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy. It is the registered owner of the vessel DELLA, which has transported Venezuelan oil.

    CORNIOLA LIMITED

    AKAs: CORNIOLA LTD

    • Address: 149, Donggang Jiedao, Putuo Qu, Zhoushan, Zhejiang 316100, China
    • Address: Rm 909 G 9/F Hunghom Coml Ctr Twr A, 39 Ma Tau Wai Rd, Hunghom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
    • Identification Number: IMO 6434228
    • Registration Number: 75612503 (Hong Kong) issued 14 Aug 2023

    According to the Treasury press release, this entity was designated for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy. It is the registered owner of the vessel NORD STAR, which has transported Venezuelan oil.

    KRAPE MYRTLE CO LTD

    • Address: 149 Donggang Jiedao, Putuo Qu, Zhoushan, Zhejiang 316100, China
    • Address: Rm D5 5/F King Yip Fty Bldg, 59 King Yip St, Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
    • Identification Number: IMO 6342210
    • Registration Number: 74094750 (Hong Kong) issued 31 May 2022

    The Treasury press release states this entity acts as the ship manager and operator of the NORD STAR and was designated for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy.

    WINKY INTERNATIONAL LIMITED

    • Address: 14th Floor, Guangdong Investment Tower, 148 Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong, China
    • Address: Majuro, Ajeltake Island 96960, Marshall Islands
    • Organization Established Date: 01 Nov 2024
    • Registration Number: 128617 (Marshall Islands)

    Based on the Treasury press release, this entity was designated for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy. It is the registered owner of the vessel ROSALIND, which has transported Venezuelan oil.

    The following vessels have been added to OFAC’s SDN List:

    [VENEZUELA-EO13850] – Executive Order 13850 – Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela

    DELLA (VRUB7)

    • Vessel Type: Crude Oil Tanker
    • Flag: Hong Kong
    • Other Vessel Flag: China
    • Vessel Year of Build: 2001
    • Vessel Registration Identification: IMO 9227479
    • MMSI: 477714500

    Linked to: ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LTD

    The Treasury press release identifies this vessel as blocked property in which ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LTDhas an interest. It has been used to transport Venezuelan oil.

    NORD STAR (3E7463)

    • Vessel Type: Crude Oil Tanker
    • Flag: Panama
    • Vessel Year of Build: 2006
    • Vessel Registration Identification: IMO 9323596
    • MMSI: 352003296

    Linked to: KRAPE MYRTLE CO LTD; CORNIOLA LIMITED

    According to the Treasury press release, this vessel is blocked property in which CORNIOLA LIMITED and KRAPE MYRTLE CO LTD have an interest. It has been used to transport Venezuelan oil.

    ROSALIND

    AKAs: LUNAR TIDE

    • Vessel Type: Oil Products Tanker
    • Flag: Guinea
    • Vessel Year of Build: 2004
    • Vessel Registration Identification: IMO 9277735

    Linked to: WINKY INTERNATIONAL LIMITED

    The Treasury press release identifies this vessel as blocked property in which WINKY INTERNATIONAL LIMITEDhas an interest. It has been used to transport Venezuelan oil.

    VALIANT (VRXH3)

    • Vessel Type: Crude Oil Tanker
    • Flag: Hong Kong
    • Other Vessel Flag: China
    • Vessel Year of Build: 2009
    • Vessel Registration Identification: IMO 9409247
    • MMSI: 477206500

    Linked to: ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LTD

    Based on the Treasury press release, this vessel is identified as blocked property in which ARIES GLOBAL INVESTMENT LTD has an interest.

    So, this was a result of trial and error – and asking Gemini what went wrong a few times. I learned the following things:

    • Originally, Gemini added “Linked to” data to the entities, linking them to the vessels that linked back to them. I had to add a line to the prompt to tell it to report what was actually in the listing and not infer Linked to data
    • WordPress sometimes does not play nicely with Gemini without manual intervention:
      • Hyperlinks sometimes will be preserved, and sometimes will get lost. However, they work just fine outside a standard paragraph – like, in a heading block.
      • Certain formatting, like bolding and italics, are preserved in a WordPress paragraph – centering is definitely not. Originally, Gemini gave me the <center></center> HTML tags around the text I wanted centered. I had a handful of options – center the text manually, give up on the centering, make the line into a header line or use a Custom HTML block.

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  • AI Corner: How to replace citation markers in AI responses

    I’ve done a number of Gemini prompts where I’ve asked it to explain, with sources, various topics. And, not infrequently, after each piece of the response which has a corresponding source behind it, Gemini gives me a linkage symbol. And, when you copy and paste it into a blog post, those linkages become a series of numerical footnotes… without the cross-reference to the source. And some of these are duplicated (I asked it whether or not that was true).

    Do I really want to bore a non-expert with all of these? Do you really need to know that this snippet came from that source? Of course not – but I did want to make Gemini show its work.

    So, I came up with this:

    Instead of inserting citation markers throughout the response , provide a source list, including URLs in parentheses (as appropriate), at the end of the response. If multiple citations refer to the same base domain, refer to the base domain instead of the specific page.

    It may not be perfect, but it seems to work – I used it on that “nunation” post.

    If someone has better ideas, let me know. I’m sure there are equivalent terms to “base domain” – I certainly didn’t want to use “TLD”, although I’m sure I could have said “DNS address for the most specific common URL” or some such.

    Note: Gemini refers to these as source markers or citation markers. What other AI engines call them – or how they’re represented in responses – I can’t say. At some point, might I have a shootout with ChatGPT, CoPilot, Claude, etc? Sure… but not today.

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