Los Angeles [US], April 20 (ANI): A 44-year-old Iranian woman with a US Green Card, arrested by federal authorities on Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of trafficking weapons on behalf of the Iranian government, is expected to be produced in court on Monday, according to officials cited by local media.
In a post on X, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested “for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran” and is expected to appear in US District Court on Monday afternoon in Los Angeles.
“She is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. § 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,” Essayli said. He added that Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016.
The Iranian national could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison if convicted. Among the alleged deals was a contract worth more than USD 70 million for Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones from Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics. The drones, along with 55,000 bomb fuses, were reportedly transferred in deals with the Sudanese Ministry of Defence, which has been engaged in a civil war since 2023, according to the New York Post.
A report in the Los Angeles Times said Mafi was arrested at the airport “where she had been set to board a flight to Turkey.” The outlet added that Mafi is the third person from the city’s Iranian diaspora to be detained by federal authorities in three weeks.
Mafi first emigrated from Iran to Istanbul in 2013 before resettling in Los Angeles, where she lived in a Woodland Hills townhouse within the city’s Iranian community, according to court records. She obtained her Green Card in 2016 and allegedly began working for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, using an Omani shell company to move weapons and funds between the government and its proxies, federal authorities claim.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Mafi used her contacts within the government to resolve a property dispute related to an inheritance from her late father and to secure her son’s exemption from mandatory military service.
“In July 2024, as fighting raged in Khartoum, a Sudanese weapons broker contacted Mafi via WhatsApp to arrange a shipment of Qods Mohajer-6 drones—the same type Iran has supplied to Russia in its war in Ukraine,” the Los Angeles Times reported. At least some of the weapons sold to the Sudanese military reportedly arrived from China.
Mafi and her company are also accused of routing transactions through Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to evade US detection, according to the New York Post. Phone records cited by the outlet indicate that Mafi had direct contact with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security between December 2022 and June 2025.
Mafi’s social media accounts reportedly show her living in California while documenting business trips to Turkey. She told investigators that she had never been tasked by the ministry to conduct any activities for Tehran in the United States, according to the New York Post. (ANI)
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