News & Updates

LOS ANGELES – Federal authorities this morning arrested four defendants across the country on charges alleging a civilian employee of the United States Navy downloaded technical drawings and manuals related to U.S. military weapons systems and sold the items to a Newport Beach company, which later resold the documents to domestic and foreign customers.

Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Jonathan Carson, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement (“OEE”), announced the arrests today of CHONG SIK YU, a/k/a “Chris Yu,” and YUNSEO LEE. YU and LEE are charged with conspiring to unlawfully export dual-use electronics components, in violation of the Export Control Reform Act, and to commit wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering.

PROVIDENCE – The president of a California-based electronics distribution company, his company and an employee have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Providence, Rhode Island, on charges they participated in a conspiracy to conceal information from the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as part of a scheme to illegally export chemicals manufactured and/or distributed by a Rhode Island-based company to a technology company in China. The company is on a U.S.

CONCORD - Aiden Davidson, a/k/a Hamed Aliabadi, 32, of Brighton, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for smuggling goods from the United States to Iran in violation of the U.S. embargo on trade with Iran, United States Attorney Scott W. Murray announced today.

CONCORD - Aiden Davidson, a/k/a Hamed Aliabadi, 32, of Tennessee, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to smuggling goods from the United States to Iran, United States Attorney Scott W. Murray announced today.

ALBANY, NEW YORK - Mahin Mojtahedzadeh, age 74, and a citizen of Iran, was sentenced today to time served (443 days in jail) for conspiring to unlawfully export gas turbine parts from the United States to Iran.

Assistant Attorney General of National Security John C. Demers and United States Attorney Erica H. MacDonald for the District of Minnesota today announced the sentencing of Negar Ghodskani, 40, to 27 months in prison for her participation in a conspiracy to illegally export controlled technology from the United States to Iran. Ghodskani, who pleaded guilty on Aug. 9, 2019, was sentenced this morning before United States District Judge Joan N. Ericksen in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John C. Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced that BEHZAD POURGHANNAD pled guilty today to participating in a conspiracy to export carbon fiber from the United States to Iran between 2008 and 2013.

LOS ANGELES – Federal authorities have arrested a resident of Iran who is charged in a scheme to ship prohibited items from the United States to Iran, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and U.S. sanctions imposed on the nation.

Mehdi Hashemi, who sometimes used the name “Eddie Hashemi,” 46, a dual citizen of the United States and Iran who previously resided in Los Angeles, is charged in a 21-count indictment that was unsealed Monday afternoon.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Erica H. MacDonald, Assistant Director John Brown of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and Special Agent in Charge Jill Sanborn of the FBI Minneapolis Division today announced the guilty plea of Negar Ghodskani, 40, for her participation in a conspiracy to illegally export controlled technology from the United States to Iran. Ghodskani, who was indicted on Dec.