Shamim Mafi, 44, was arrested at LAX on suspicion of helping Sudan buy large drones used in the war, as well as bombs and AK-47s, at the behest of the Iranian government.
LOS ANGELES (CN) – A woman living in the San Fernando Valley has been accused of selling Iranian-made weapons, including drones, bombs, assault weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition to Sudan.
Shamim Mafi, a 44-year-old Iranian national, was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport before she could board a flight leaving the United States. She is charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
Mafi has been a legal permanent resident of the US since 2016 and operated an Oman-based company, Atlas International Business. In 2025, she used that business to broker arms deals at the behest of the Iranian government. In one deal, it facilitated a $60 million sale of Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed unmanned aerial vehicles — large drones, the size of small airplanes, capable of firing precision-guided munitions. In the criminal complaintfiled over the weekend but unsealed Monday, prosecutors say her cut was $6 million.
In another deal, authorities allege Mafi helped the Sudanese Defense Ministry obtain 55,000 bomb fuses and disclosed the sale to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In another case, they accuse him of brokering the sale of 70,000 AK-47s, 10 million rounds of ammunition, 1,000 grenade launchers and 500,000 rockets from Iran to Sudan, which has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since 2023.
Prosecutors say Mafi communicated with an officer with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, about 62 times between December 2022 and June 2025. In an affidavit attached to the complaint, an FBI agent says Mafi “claimed to have extensive information about the Iranian financial system and the Iranian government’s money laundering channels.” She told the agent that she was “more useful to MOIS in Iran than in the United States,” which the agent took to mean that she was not assigned to work within the U.S. but in other countries.
The mafia’s ties to the Iranian government run deep. In 2024, she was given a senior role in the campaign of an Iranian presidential candidate.
“This level of confidence is consistent with Mafi acting at the direction of Iranian government officials in other contexts, including arms brokering,” the agent wrote in his statement.
Mafi is expected to appear in court on Monday afternoon. She still has not pleaded guilty.
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