Los Angeles woman arrested for alleged arms sales on behalf of Iranian government

Shamim Mafi is expected to make her initial appearance Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

A 44-year-old Iranian woman living in Los Angeles was arrested on suspicion helping the government of Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, U.S. officials said Sunday.

Shamim Mafi was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night and is facing charges that she brokered the sale of "drones, bombs, bomb fuses and millions of rounds of ammunition" manufactured by Iran and sold to the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a social media post.

It wasn't known Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.

Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. in 2016, Essayli said.

A criminal complaint dated March 12 alleges that Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator operated a company in Oman called Atlas International Business through which weapons and ammunition were trafficked.

In 2024, for example, Mafi allegedly facilitated a contract valued at over $72.5 million for the sale of Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones to Sudan's Ministry of Defense, which has been fighting in a bloody civil war since 2023. Mafi herself reportedly earned over $7 million as payment from the sale.

She is also accused of brokering the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses and millions of rounds from Iran to Sudan, according to court records.

Court documents show that on Feb. 26, 2025 Mafi sent her alleged co-conspirator the signed contract between Atlas Global Holding and the Ministry of Defense of Sudan via WhatsApp and later sent them photographs and a video showing the opening of a large crate containing $100 bills.

She also brokered the sale of 500 non-guided aerial bombs, thousands of AM-A-25 bomb fuses, 70,000 AK-47s, 250 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 500,000 rockets, among other equipment and ammunition, court records allege.

The complaint also says that on June 28, 2024, the secretary of the Headquarters for Ethnic, Tribal, and Religious Affairs of an Iranian presidential campaign sent Mafi a letter, written in Farsi, appointing Mafi as the head of the agency's women's campaign for a candidate running for president in 2024.

They describe the unnamed candidate as being the current speaker of the Iranian parliament since 2020, as well as the mayor of Tehran from 2005 to 2017, the Iranian chief of police from 2000 to 2005 and head of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from 1997 to 2000.

While not named in the complaint, those dates and positions correlate to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Iran's leading conservative figures, who NBC News reports may be the point man in talks with the U.S. to negotiate a peace deal.

Mafi is expected to make her initial appearance Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. If convicted, she faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

NBC's Babak Dehghanpisheh and City News Service contributed to this report.