{"id":202782,"date":"2026-04-19T21:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202782\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T21:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:19:15","slug":"iranian-businesswoman-shamim-mafi-busted-at-lax-charged-with-helping-regime-buy-drones-bombs-and-ammo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202782\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian businesswoman Shamim Mafi busted at LAX, charged with helping regime buy drones, bombs and ammo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A glamorous Iranian businesswoman with a US green card was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport for allegedly trafficking arms on behalf of Tehran.<\/a><\/p>\n

Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was taken into custody on Saturday night and charged with brokering deals for Iranian drones, bombs, and millions of rounds of ammunition bound for Sudan, according to the office of the US Attorney for the Central District of California. <\/p>\n

Mafi had allegedly conducted the arms deals while in close contact with Iran\u2019s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which provided instruction and funds for her to open a business in the US to operate out of, according to court records.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iranian businesswoman Shamim Mafi was arrested at LAX Saturday night. Facebook\/Shamim Mafi<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. \u00a7 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,\u201d First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday, announcing the arrest.<\/p>\n

Mafi posted glam pics of herself traveling the world \u2014 including posing in a $100,000 Mercedes-Benz roadster.<\/p>\n

Mafi, who left Iran in 2013 and became a permanent resident of the US in 2016 under the Obama administration, allegedly used an Oman-registered company, Atlas International Business, to broker weapons deals as recently as 2025, according to court records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the sales was a contract for more than $70 million for Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones from Iran\u2019s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The drones, along with 55,000 bomb fuses, were transferred in deals with the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, which has been fighting in a bloody civil war since 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi was charged with brokering deals for Iranian drones, bombs and ammunition for Sudan. X\/@USAttyEssayli<\/p>\n

Iran has been repeatedly accused of violating a United Nations arms embargo amid the Sudanese civil war, with its drones spotted in use by the government forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The civil war has claimed between 61,000 to hundreds of thousands of lives as it enters its fourth year, with the UN\u2019s fact-finding mission identifying the recent mass deaths in Darfur as having the \u201challmarks of genocide.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conflict has also displaced nearly nine million people, making it one of the worst displacement crises<\/a> on the planet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi allegedly brokered arms deals for Tehran, according to the office of the US Attorney for the Central District of California. X\/@USAttyEssayli<\/p>\n

Phone records indicate that Mafi had direct contact with Iran\u2019s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) between December 2022 and June 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Mafi had no legal requisites to oversee such dangerous sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi and her company were also accused of purposefully going through channels in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to conduct the sales so as to skirt US detection.<\/p>\n

Mafi showed off her luxurious lifestyle across social media. Facebook\/Shamim Mafi<\/p>\n

Mafi\u2019s home in Woodland Hills. Rafael Fontoura for CA Post<\/p>\n

Mafi\u2019s social media accounts show her living the lap of luxury in California and showing off her business trips in Turkey.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi told investigators that she has never been tasked by the MOIS to conduct any activities for Tehran in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A probe into Mafi\u2019s past showed that Tehran had seized properties that she inherited from her father in 2020, with MOIS then directing her to open a business in the US to buy the properties back from the Iranian government, according to the court records.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi planned to fly to Istanbul before she was apprehended by law enforcement. Facebook\/Shamim Mafi<\/p>\n

MOIS had offered to buy for the start-up costs, officials noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi had allegedly said that she is \u201cmore useful\u201d to MOIS in Iran than in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The businesswoman was scheduled to fly to Istanbul on Saturday when she was met by law enforcement officers who took her into custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mafi could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of violating the Conspiracy to Violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. X\/@USAttyEssayli<\/p>\n

Mafi is ultimately accused of violating the Conspiracy to Violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which if convicted of, would lead to a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The suspect is scheduled to appear at the US District Court in downtown LA on Monday, prosecutors said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A representative for Mafi could not be immediately reached for comment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A glamorous Iranian businesswoman with a US green card was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3283,14670,80309,1016,9,11,10,58,1076],"class_list":{"0":"post-202782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-arrests","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-lax","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-us-news","16":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}