A 44-year-old Iranian-American woman was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night on suspicion of brokering illegal arms deals between the Iranian government and Sudan, a country engulfed in a devastating civil war. Shamim Mafi, a resident of Woodland Hills in suburban Los Angeles, was detained by federal agents and faces charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
According to a criminal complaint dated 12 March, Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator operated a company called Atlas International Business, registered in Oman, through which weapons and ammunition were allegedly trafficked. The complaint alleges that the pair brokered the sale of Iranian-manufactured drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition to the Sudanese Ministry of Defence. In one deal alone — involving the sale of drones to Sudan — the contract was valued at more than €60 million, with Mafi reportedly earning around €6 million after coordinating a Sudanese delegation's travel to Iran. Separately, the pair allegedly brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses, with Mafi submitting a letter of intent directly to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the powerful military branch of the Iranian state, to facilitate the purchase. The company received over $7 million in payments in 2025 alone, according to court documents.
Mafi is an Iranian national who has held lawful permanent residency in the United States since 2016. Court records indicate she previously lived in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2013 to 2016, and continues to travel frequently between the US, Iran, Turkey, and Oman. In an interview with federal officials, Mafi reportedly stated that her first husband was an officer for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Social media images reportedly show her posing with weapons at a warehouse in Turkey.
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California announced the charges on social media on Sunday, posting a photograph of a woman in FBI custody being escorted to a vehicle outside an airport terminal. Mafi is scheduled to make her first court appearance at US District Court in Los Angeles on Monday.
The case carries significant geopolitical weight. Sudan has been wracked by civil war since April 2023, a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The alleged supply of Iranian weapons into that conflict raises serious concerns about foreign interference in the war and potential violations of international arms embargoes. It also adds to a broader pattern of US legal actions targeting alleged Iranian weapons trafficking networks operating through third countries.