Iranian woman arrested in US for pushing ‘drones, bombs’ and other munitions between Tehran and Sudan
Shamim Mafi, a 44-year-old Iranian woman, was arrested at Los Angeles Airport in the United States on suspicion of brokering an arms deal between Iran and Sudan that included drones and bombs. Sudan is a country continually struck by civil war.
A company run by Mafi that trafficked weapons and ammunition received more than $7 million in payments in 2025, the Associated Press reported.
The Iranian woman faces charges of promoting “drones, bombs, bomb fuses and millions of rounds of ammunition” between the armed forces of Iran and Sudan, top U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a post on Sunday in which he shared a photo of the woman.
One of the photos shared by Essayli showed someone wearing an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back seat of a sedan outside the LAX terminal, and another showed a pile of cash, without providing further details. “Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016,” Essayli further stated.
According to him, if convicted, Shamim Mafi will face a statutory sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.
Charges against Iranian women
Shamim Mafi is accused of assisting Iran in trafficking weapons to Sudan. According to the Associated Press, Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator ran a company called Atlas International Business Company in Oman and engaged in arms trafficking.
Court documents show the pair facilitated the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to Sudan’s Defense Ministry. “In connection with this transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) to purchase bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint said, according to the publication.
A contract for Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones worth more than $70 million was also part of the sale, the New York Post reported. The publication also cited phone records indicating the woman had direct contact with Iranian intelligence between December 2022 and June 2025.
Sudan’s civil war recently entered its fourth year, with little hope for a ceasefire. Shamim Mafi’s arrest comes as the future of the Iran-Iraq war hangs in the balance, with one round of talks in Pakistan failing and another potentially imminent.
The Iranian woman is reportedly scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday.
