Federal officials arrested an Iranian woman at the Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night for allegedly brokering weapons for the Iranian regime, officials said Sunday.
Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, California, is a green card holder, according to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in a post on X on Sunday.
Mafi was arrested at the Los Angeles airport “for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran” and was charged in connection to the alleged selling “of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,” he said.
“If convicted, she faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison,” Essayli wrote. “Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016.”
She is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, he said.
A criminal complaint filed by federal officials in connection to the case said that Mafi allegedly facilitated a contract valued at more than 60 million Euros (around $70 million) for the sale of Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drones manufactured for the regime that were commissioned to be sold to Sudan. She also coordinated a Sudanese delegation to Iran and received around $7 million in payments.
She was also accused of brokering the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according to prosecutors, who stated that Mafi did not attempt to obtain a license from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for the sales.
“During interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Control officers and the FBI, Mafi acknowledged communicating with an officer of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security,” prosecutors said.
Mafi also allegedly told the FBI that she could provide “extensive information about the Iranian financial system and money laundering channels” that the Iranian regime uses, according to the complaint.
The arrest was made as the U.S. government increases economic pressure on Iran in the wake of a U.S.-Israeli campaign that included thousands of strikes inside the country since Feb. 28. The Trump administration, which initiated a naval blockade of Iranian ports last week, is sending a team to Pakistan Monday to hold more talks about a possible peace deal.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at a White House briefing on April 15 that the United States plans to ramp up economic pain on Iran, and said the new moves will be the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign.
Bessent said the Trump administration has “told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure. And the Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”
That same day, the Treasury Department said it placed new sanctions on an Iranian oil smuggling network, including around two-dozen individuals, companies, and vessels that were using front companies to evade previous U.S. sanctions.
It’s not clear if Mafi has legal representation.