Timothy O'Toole commented on the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announcement that it is seeking sanctions against Latvia's ABLV Bank for money laundering in connection with North Korea. "These sorts of designations are unlikely to have a big effect alone in either implementing the North Korean sanctions or in improving general anti-money laundering practices," O'Toole said. "A single small bank designation is simply not large enough to make that happen on its own. However, when combined with significant publicity, the designations can suffice to get the word out to other, larger financial institutions that such practices carry extreme risks…..This was the strategy [the Office of Foreign Assets Control] used in connection with Iran sanctions, and it eventually proved quite successful."