LA woman arrested on charge of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan
US federal prosecutors say a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.
Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First US Attorney Bill Essayli says on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it isn’t known if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
Essayli posts a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Last night, Shamim Mafi, 44, of Woodland Hills, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for trafficking arms on behalf of the government of Iran. She is charged with a violation of 50 U.S.C. § 1705 for brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of… pic.twitter.com/l39Gf1WVed
— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) April 19, 2026
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli says.
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. The company received over $7 million in payments in 2025.
Separately, Mafi and the co-conspirator brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according to the court documents.
“In connection with the transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (‘IRGC’) to purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint says.
Mafi is scheduled to appear in US District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
The Sudanese civil war has created a humanitarian crisis in the North African country, where food supplies are dwindling and millions of people have fled their homes.
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