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Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of
“drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of
ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it wasn't known
Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Essayli posted a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a
woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent
resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli said.
A criminal complaint dated March 12 alleges that Mafi and an
unnamed co-conspirator operated a company in Oman called Atlas
International Business through which weapons and ammunition were
trafficked. The company received over $7 million in payments in
2025.
Separately, Mafi and the co-conspirator brokered the sale of
55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according
to the court documents.
“In connection with the transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of
intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ('IRGC') to
purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint said.
Mafi is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los
Angeles on Monday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years
in prison.
The Sudanese civil war has created a humanitarian crisis in the
North African country where food supplies are dwindling and
millions of people have fled their homes.
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