How is it possible to "sanction" a Bitcoin address?

What is this article even talking about?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-sanctions-bitcoin-address-belonging-172135820.html

It doesn't even try to explain. As we all know, no government can seize funds, freeze an account/wallet, or do anything whatsoever to a Bitcoin address if it doesn't have the private key. So what is this article talking about? Is it making it criminal to send funds to the adress, so anyone who tries to do so will be prosecuted? (If the government finds out who it is). Even if this is the case though, the person in question could just get a new wallet.

Edit: Interesting comment someone made:

The wallet, which is now empty, received and sent about 0.25 BTC in total

The wallet doesn’t even contain anything anymore