The owner of an Italian restaurant accidentally found himself on a US blacklist created as part of a pressure campaign against Venezuela.
Sanctions on Alessandro Bazzoni, a restaurateur from Verona, were imposed just before the rotation in the White House. The US Treasury also mistakenly blacklisted the graphic design company SeriGraphicLab, which is owned by another Alessandro Bazzoni from Sardinia.
The Donald Trump administration introduced anti-Venezuelan oil sanctions back in 2019 in order to put pressure on the economy of the Bolivarian Republic and to overthrow the country’s President Nicolas Maduro. On his last day at the White House, Trump added a network of oil companies and individuals linked to PDVSA, the Venezuelan energy company, to the sanctions list.
The restaurateur Bazzoni found himself on the US blacklist while visiting his bank on January 19.
“When I heard that my checking accounts were blocked, I thought it was a joke”, – he said in a comment for The Guardian.
“These are already difficult times for us restaurant owners, the last thing I needed was blocked accounts”.
Later, the error was fixed. On the March 31 blacklist, both companies were removed. The owner of the restaurant said that he did not even receive an apology.