Woman with glam lifestyle held at US airport; charged with brokering deals for Iran drones, bombs, ammo for Sudan

LOS ANGELES: A 44-year-old Iranian woman with a US Green Card, who was arrested by US Federal authorities on Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of trafficking weapons on the Iranian government’s behalf, is expected to be produced in court on Monday, according to officials cited by local media.

In a post on X, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said Shamim Mafi (44) of Woodland Hills, was arrested “for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran” and , is expected to make an appearance in US District Court on Monday afternoon in Los Angeles.

“She is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. SS 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan,” the First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said.

عکسهای دیگری از شمیم مافی https://t.co/biYPhlbQv0 pic.twitter.com/Gae1JKrkmA

— Hadi Zonouzi هادی زنوزی (@HadiZonouzi) April 19, 2026

Shamim Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016,” Essayli said. The Iranian national could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

Among the sales was a contract for more than $70 million for Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones from Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics. The drones, along with 55,000 bomb fuses, were transferred in deals with the Sudanese Ministry of Defence, which has been fighting in a bloody civil war since 2023, according to the New York Post.

A report in the Los Angeles Times said that Mafi was arrested at the LA airport “where she been set to board a flight to Turkey”. The news outlet said that Mafi is the third person from the city’s vast Iranian diaspora to be “collared by federal authorities in three weeks”.

Mafi first emigrated from Iran to Istanbul in 2013 before resettling in Los Angeles, where she ensconced herself in a tony Woodland Hills townhouse in the heart of LA’s Iranian community between trips to Iran, Turkey and Oman, court records show. She got her green card in 2016 and quickly began working for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, using an Omani shell company to move weapons and cash between the government and its proxies, federal authorities allege, the report detailed.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Mafi leveraged her contacts within the government to settle a property dispute over an inheritance from her late father and to get her son out of his mandatory military service.

“In July of 2024, as fighting raged in Khartoum, a Sudanese weapons broker WhatsApped Mafi to contract a shipment of Qods Mohajer-6 drones — the same ones Iran has long supplied Russia in its war in Ukraine, according to the complaint. At least some of the weapons Mafi sold to the military arrived in Sudan from China,” the LA Times news report said.

Mafi and her company were also accused of purposefully going through channels in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to conduct the sales so as to skirt US detection, the New York Post said. Phone records indicate that Mafi had direct contact with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) between December 2022 and June 2025, the US media outlet said.

Mafi’s social media accounts show her living in California and showing off her business trips in Turkey. Mafi told investigators that she has never been tasked by the MOIS to conduct any activities for Tehran in the US as per the report in the New York Post. (ANI)