Woodland Hills woman arrested at LAX on Iran arms trafficking charges

A 44-year-old Woodland Hills woman was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday on federal charges accusing her of brokering the sale of Iranian-made weapons — including armed drones, guided bombs and millions of rounds of ammunition — to Sudan in violation of U.S. sanctions law.

The case illustrates how Iran allegedly uses private brokers to circumvent sweeping U.S. economic sanctions and generate weapons revenue — a scheme federal prosecutors say was run in part by a Southern California resident operating a shell company in Oman.

Shamim Mafi, an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent U.S. resident in 2016, allegedly operated a company in Oman called Atlas International Business that submitted letters of intent to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and arranged weapons deliveries to Sudan's Ministry of Defense, according to The Associated Press.

The criminal complaint, dated March 12, charges Mafi under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. She did not enter a plea at her Monday court appearance and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The alleged package included six high-tech armed drones, 300 guided bombs, 55,000 bomb fuses and millions of rounds of ammunition — a transaction valued at more than 60 million euros. Atlas International Business received over $7 million in payments in 2025 alone, the AP reported.

Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney, said Mafi was "acting as a broker for the government of Iran and trafficking ammunitions, bombs, bomb fuses, drones — really dangerous arms."

Essayli cited Iran's financial desperation as the driver behind the alleged scheme. "Iran is heavily economically sanctioned. They're starving for money. It's very difficult for them to sell or do things to get money, which then they fund to weaponize against their adversaries, such as the U.S. So what she's doing was helping them get that tens, hundreds of millions of dollars through trafficking of these arms," he said.

Investigators moved to arrest Mafi before all evidence was fully assembled after learning she had booked travel out of the country. "We were trying to get a few more things in place, but once we learned that she had booked a ticket to leave the United States, we were not going to let her leave," Essayli said. "So we moved quickly to put the evidence that we got into a complaint, into an affidavit, present it to a federal judge, and get it signed quickly before she could depart the country."

The case is being prosecuted in the Central District of California. No trial date has been set.