For the most part, government press releases are not legal documents, they are informational, and should not be relied upon. Only an actual change in the watchlist, or a legal register, creates or modifies someone's status. Castellum.AI always goes to the most important source of information - which is the watchlist itself or a legal register maintained by the list source. For example, the US Department of State might issue a press release about US sanctions on Russia, but that is not the source document. The source document is the US Treasury's OFAC SDN list.
This disconnect can have several effects. Often a press release is issued before the watchlists are updated. This means that you will see a press release with “sanctioned” names from Government XYZ that are not actually on Government XYZ’s watchlist. Similarly, you may then see news stories citing the press release, even though the actual names are still not on the watchlist. This lag issue is resolved when list sources update their watchlists / legal registers, and is usually resolved within several hours but has also taken up to several days.
Another potential reason for not finding something you’ve seen in a press release or in the news is that the press release is inaccurate and has different information than the watchlist. Watchlists are legal documents that may use a full, legal version of a name, whereas a press release may use a nickname or only partial name. Additionally, the news often gets it wrong, for example, by referring to export control actions restrictions as sanctions.