FBI arrests Los Angeles woman accused of running a covert arms network for Iran worth millions

A woman who lived in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Los Angeles was arrested last weekend accused of operating for several years as a covert middleman for the Iranian regime, facilitating sales of drones, bombs, assault weapons and ammunition worth millions of dollars in clear violation of U.S. sanctions.

Shamim Mafi, 44, a resident of Woodland Hills—a neighborhood bordering the Santa Monica Mountains—was arrested Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport as she attempted to board a flight bound for Turkey. The arrest was confirmed by Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.

"Anyone who violates United States sanctions laws will be vigorously prosecuted by the DOJ. Great work by @FBILosAngeles and the federal prosecutors in my office," he wrote on X.

According to a 69-page federal indictment, Mafi set up a front company called Atlas International Business LLC and a similar entity in Oman, from which she managed arms transfers between the Iranian regime and its buyers. Among the deals attributed to her was a sale of drones worth more than $60 million between Iran and the Ministry of Defense of Sudan, a country under U.S. sanctions and embroiled in a bloody civil war.

In recent years Iran has turned the sale of its drone technology into a considerable source of revenue, marketing on the international market the same weaponry it has used in the Persian Gulf against targets linked to the United States and Israel.

Born in Iran in 1981, Mafi obtained legal permanent residency in the United States in 2016. According to prosecutors, she maintained contacts with members of Iranian intelligence whom she had known since childhood and coordinated directly with senior officials of the Tehran regime, which is now at war with the U.S. and Israel.

Curiously, Mafi had not entirely hidden her ties. Between 2021 and 2024, she was regularly interviewed by Customs and Border Protection agents every time she entered the country, and in those interviews she voluntarily admitted that her first husband had been an Iranian intelligence officer and that she had knowledge of how the Iranian regime evaded sanctions and engaged in money laundering. According to prosecutors, she claimed that her work was limited to arranging medical aid shipments to African countries.

Court documents, however, indicate that Mafi was still brokering arms deals on behalf of Iran as recently as 2025. She now faces charges of exporting weapons without a license and other related offenses, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.