Officials feared Woodland Hills woman would flee before arrest for alleged arms trafficking for Iran
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A 44-year-old Woodland Hills woman appeared in court on Monday for allegedly trafficking arms for the Iranian government in violation of U.S. law.
Shamim Mafi was arrested on Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and is charged with brokering the sale of Iranian-made weapons to Sudan.
"She was acting as a broker for the government of Iran and trafficking ammunitions, bombs, bomb fuses, drones -- really dangerous arms," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
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 said.
According to the criminal complaint, the weapons included six high-tech armed drones, along with 300 guided bombs. Documents show a case full of $100 bills, allegedly as a partial cash payment. The sale totaled more than 60 million euros.
Mafi is also accused of brokering the sale of millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and allegedly sold to Sudan.
"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.," Essayli said. "So what she's doing was helping them get that tens, hundreds of millions of dollars through trafficking of these arms."
Federal prosecutors say Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent U.S. resident in 2016. She lived in Woodland Hills, but Eyewitness News couldn't find any information about her home.
She was arrested at LAX on Saturday after investigators said she bought a ticket to travel to Turkey, and they worried she was attempting to leave 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. 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," Essayli said.
Among the charges Mafi faces is conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
Sudan is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war, which has created a humanitarian crisis in the North African country where food supplies are dwindling and millions of people have fled their homes.
Mafi appeared in court for the first time on Monday but did not enter a plea.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
