First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli announced the feds arrested an Iranian-born woman for allegedly helping Iran traffic weapons to Iran on Saturday night in Los Angeles.
“Last night, Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran,” Essayli wrote on X. “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.”
The Los Angeles Times noted that Sudan has been in a civil war, leaving over 100,000 dead and displacing millions since 2023.
The feds arrested Mafi before she could board a flight to Turkey from Los Angeles International Airport.
Mafi became a lawful permanent U.S. resident in 2016. She first emigrated to Turkey before landing in Los Angeles. Records show she made frequent trips to Iran, Oman, and Turkey.
The authorities allege Mafi started working for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security after securing a green card in 2016, “using an Omani shell company to move weapons and cash between the government and its proxies.”
This is crazy:
In July of 2024, as fighting raged in Khartoum, a Sudanese weapons broker WhatsApped Mafi to contract a shipment of Qods Mohajer-6 drones — the same ones Iran has long supplied Russia in its war in Ukraine, according to the complaint. At least some of the weapons Mafi sold to the military arrived in Sudan from China.Subsequent exchanges frequently referenced the complexity of moving cash to evade U.S. sanctions. A portion of the money was delivered in crates of $100 bills, while other transfers were made through hawalas, informal money-exchange systems that operate throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa, and still others through banks in Dubai.“I[t] should be in small amounts,” Mafi instructed one of her Sudanese contacts over WhatsApp while brokering a payment in 2024, according to court documents. “In turkey we can just accept in exchange. And it should be in cash.”Documents obtained by the FBI and detailed in the criminal complaint name Mafi’s shell company as the exporter of the drones, and the Sudanese Ministry of Defense as their buyer.
The criminal complaint accuses Mafi of meeting with Sudanese contacts in Tehran. One meeting included Sudanese officials to inspect bomb fuses, but Mafi did not attend since the facility does not allow women.
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