Woman Arrested at LAX Airport for Allegedly Trafficking Weapons for Iran

A California woman has been arrested on charges that she was helping Iran traffic arms.

“Last night, Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli posted on X.

“She is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. § 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,” he posted.

“If convicted, she faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016,” he said.

Last night, Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran. She is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. § 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of… pic.twitter.com/l39Gf1WVed

— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) April 19, 2026

A criminal complaint from March 12 said that Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator ran an Oman-based company called Atlas International Business, which allegedly took over $7 million in 2025 to ship weapons, according to NBC News.

Court documents said Mafi and her co-conspirator brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese government, 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 emigrated from Iran to Istanbul in 2013 and then to the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, where after trips to Iran, Turkey, and Oman, she worked for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security to sell weapons for Iran, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The complaint said that in 2024, a Sudanese weapons broker contacted Mafi to buy Qods Mohajer-6 drones, which Iran has been sending to Russia amid the Ukraine war.

The complaint alleged that some weapons Mafi sold to Sudan came from China.

Mafi allegedly built a complex web of moving money around to avoid detection.

“I[t] should be in small amounts,” Mafi told a contact in 2024, according to the complaint. “In turkey we can just accept in exchange. And it should be in cash.”

The complaint noted one meeting in which there was a glitch.

Sudanese officials in Tehran wanted to inspect bomb fuses, but Mafi was not allowed to accompany them because Iran did not allow women in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility where the fuses were stored.

Mafi had to send a man in her place.

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