A glamorous Iranian woman living a lavish life in Los Angeles was arrested for allegedly trafficking deadly drones and bombs for Tehran.
Shamim Mafi, 44, was taken into custody at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night and charged with allegedly brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition to be sold to Sudan, the US Attorney for the Central District of California said on Sunday.
Mafi left Iran in 2013 and became a permanent US resident in 2016 under the Obama administration, officials stated.
The Woodland Hills resident allegedly used Atlas International Business, an Oman-registered company, to broker weapons deals as recently as 2025, according to court records obtained by the New York Post.
One of her sales included a contract for more than $70 million for Mohajer-6 armed drones made by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
Those drones and 55,000 bomb fuses were transfered in deals with the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, which has beeen fighting in a violent civil war since 2023.
According to phone records included in court documents, Mafi had direct contact with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) between December 2022 and June 2025.
During her time in America, Mafi has shared pictures of her living the high life, including an image of her posing in a $100,000 Mercedes-Benz.
She told investigators that she has never been hired by Iran to conduct any activites for Tehran on American soil.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said Mafi had no legal clerance to oversee the alleges dangerous sales.
A previous investigation revealed that Tehran seized properties that Mafi inherited from her father in 2020, according to court records.
The Ministry of Intelligence then told her to open a business in the US to buy the properties back from the Iranian government, court records stated.
According to prosecutors, Iran also offered to pay for her start-up costs.
Mafi allegedly said that she is ‘more useful’ to the Iranian spies in Tehran than in the US, prosecutors said.
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