Federal agents arrested an Iranian national at Los Angeles International Airport after prosecutors say she arranged multimillion-dollar weapons deals on behalf of Iran, including drone and munitions sales to Sudan, with investigators alleging payments were routed through third countries to evade U.S. sanctions.
Federal authorities arrested an Iranian national at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night for allegedly facilitating an arms deal for the Iranian regime. The case landed in federal hands quickly, and the arrest happened as the suspect prepared to board a flight out of the country.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced in a post on X that “Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran.” The statement put the allegation in stark terms and signaled this is being pursued as a national security matter.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident in 2016. Prosecutors say agents detained her while she was about to fly to Turkey, a regular transit point in the alleged payment routes tied to the transactions.
Authorities allege Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator ran an Oman-based company called Atlas International Business, LLC to move Iranian weapons into Sudan’s military. The indictment claims she brokered a contract worth over $70.6 million for Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones to Sudan’s Ministry of Defense.
Beyond drones, prosecutors further allege that she brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses, AK-47 machine guns and other weapons to Sudan’s government. “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 criminal complaint explains.
Investigators say Atlas International Business received over $7 million in payments in 2025, and that the money was routed through Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to mask its origin and to try to avoid U.S. sanctions enforcement. That kind of layering is a common tactic used to hide the true source of funds and keep illicit transfers off the U.S. radar.
Mafi was born in Iran, later lived in Istanbul, and ultimately moved to the United States, where she obtained permanent residency in 2016. Her background and travel history feature in the complaint as context for how she allegedly positioned herself to act as an intermediary for Tehran.
The filings say Mafi kept ongoing contacts with Iranian officials and figures tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that she maintained communications with an officer from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. According to records obtained under a search warrant, there were roughly 62 contacts between Mafi and Iranian officials between December 2022 and June 2025, which investigators highlighted in the complaint.
During interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and the FBI, she reportedly admitted to communicating with an officer from Iran’s intelligence ministry, which prosecutors are using to connect her actions to Iran’s broader clandestine networks. The federal case frames the alleged transactions as more than business deals; prosecutors say they were conduits for weapons flowing to conflict zones under Tehran’s influence.
If convicted on the serious charges outlined in the complaint, Mafi faces up to 20 years in prison. For conservative national security watchers, this case underscores the threat that covert financial and commercial channels pose when hostile foreign governments exploit global commerce to fund and arm proxies abroad.
