California woman charged with selling Iran-made weapons to Sudan
Shamim Mafi, 44, was arrested at LAX on suspicion of helping Sudan buy large drones used in warfare, 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 charged with 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 on 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 statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
Mafi has been a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. since 2016, and has operated an Oman-based company, Atlas International Business. In 2025, she used that business to broker weapons deals at the behest of the Iranian government. In one deal, she 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 complaint, filed over the weekend but unsealed on Monday, prosecutors say her cut was $6 million.
In another deal, authorities claim Mafi helped the Sudanese Ministry of Defense acquire 55,000 bomb fuses and disclosed the sale to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On another occasion, they accuse her of brokering the sale of 70,000 AK-47s, 10 million rounds of ammunition, 1,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 500,000 rockets from Iran to Sudan, which has been engulfed in a bloody civil war since 2023.
Prosecutors say that 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 money laundering channels used by the government of Iran." 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 tasked to work inside the U.S., but in other countries.
Mafi's ties to the Iranian government run deep, according to prosecutors. In 2024, they claim she was given a senior role in an Iranian presidential candidate's campaign.
"This level of trust is consistent with Mafi acting at the direction of Iranian government officials in other contexts, including the weapons brokering," the agent writes in his affidavit.
Mafi is expected to make her initial courtroom appearance on Monday afternoon. She has not yet entered a plea.