Iranian American woman arrested in Los Angeles for alleged arms trafficking

A California woman was arrested at Los Angeles international airport after allegedly trafficking weapons on behalf of the Iranian government to contacts in Africa, including Sudan.

Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills was detained on Saturday night by federal agents, according to the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles.

Mafi was charged on the suspicion of “brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured”, wrote Bill Essayli, first assistant US attorney for the central district of California, in a post on X.

Mafi, an Iranian national, has been a lawful permanent resident of the US since 2016. Mafi maintains a US residence but frequently travels to Iran, Turkey and Oman, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News.

The complaint against Mafi states that she lived in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2013 to 2016. In one interview with federal officials, Mafi said that her first husband was an officer for Iran’s ministry of intelligence and security, the intelligence arm of the Iranian government.

Mafi and a co-conspirator, who was not named in court documents, allegedly brokered weapons deals through their company Atlas International, according to records obtained during an authorized search. The illegal weapons dealing allegedly took place in several locations, including in California, according to the complaint.

In one such deal, Mafi allegedly facilitated the sale of Iranian-manufactured drones by the Iranian government to Sudan’s ministry of defense, a contract valued at more than €60m. Mafi herself reportedly earned $6m euros in payment after “[coordinating] the Sudanese delegation’s travel to Iran”.

Sudan has been fighting a civil war since 2023, a conflict that has killed as many as hundreds of thousands of and upwards of 13 million people in the region.