A California tech CEO with dual US-Iranian citizenship has been arrested for secretly funneling millions of dollars’ worth of US networking and encryption technology to Iran’s nuclear and defense ministries in a sophisticated sanctions-evasion scheme dating back to 2011.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) says 63-year-old Jamshid Ghomi spent more than a decade using his own company to move hundreds of pieces of controlled US technology to the Iranian government, pocketing more than $15 million in the process.

Residing in the affluent Newport Coast community at the tip of Newport Beach, California, the Iranian-American was said to have been living in a $35 million mansion when he was taken into custody while the FBI raided the home on Wednesday.

Ghomi was arrested on charges of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), making his first appearance in the Santa Ana US District Court on Thursday.

“Ghomi is accused of aiding our declared enemies by selling US-origin computer networking parts to Iran and earning millions of dollars in violation of US sanction laws,” said First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California.

“Our nation’s laws prohibiting doing business with one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terrorism must be enforced and obeyed,” Essayli said.

DoJ says scheme secretly supplied Iran’s nuclear sector

DoJ officials say Ghomi used his Tehran-based computer networking company, Fara Process Resaneh (FPR), to facilitate the years-long operation, all while living in the US.

The DoJ says FPR – of which Ghomi was the founder, owner, and CEO – generated more than $10 million in annual sales and served hundreds of Iranian companies and government entities, including some already subject to US sanctions.

A portion of that business allegedly involved highly sensitive customers connected to Iran's nuclear and defense sectors.

Prosecutors allege that between 2017 and 2023, FPR supplied US-origin networking equipment to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), the government agency sanctioned by the US State Department in 2020. and responsible for Iran's nuclear program, including uranium enrichment activities.

From 2014 through 2022, FPR allegedly supplied networking, security, and encryption products to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, as well as affiliated military and defense-electronics organizations, including a 2017 contact that identified the buyer as a ministry-linked entity.

DoJ officials say that from 2011 to 2015, Ghomi made more than 400 purchases of computer-networking equipment using his personal eBay and PayPal accounts.

Over the next four years, starting in 2014, he allegedly arranged the smuggling of that equipment – totaling more than 275 US tons (250 metric tons) – into Iran.

Front companies and hidden shipments used to bypass sanctions

Ghomi is said to have “identified, negotiated, purchased, and arranged” the transport of large quantities of equipment himself, disguising his own involvement using front companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Investigators claim he instructed co-conspirators to keep his name off shipping paperwork, omit invoices, and, in some cases, conceal US-made equipment inside larger shipments bound for Iran, at times using freight forwarders and intermediaries in Dubai.

Referring to the “Motherland” on much of the fraudulent paperwork, the Ghomi was said to have laundered millions of dollars into the US made from the illegal sales.

Investigators tied FPR’s sales revenue to an account at a sanctioned Iranian bank that would receive rotating wire transfers for “consulting fees” from “unrelated trading companies” in the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Turkey, and the UAE.

At one point, Ghomi allegedly transferred more than $15 million from Iran into his US bank accounts, reporting to the IRS that the funds were from an Iranian inheritance.

Prosecutors also noted that over the years, “Ghomi’s federal tax returns reported almost no income, his highest reported income in any year being $20,684,” even claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, reserved for lower-income individuals, for at least seven years.

This is all while reporting $1.7 million in mortgage interest and $1.25 million in property taxes on his federal tax returns, the DoJ said.

Prosecutors, who have not yet decided on an “appropriate prison sentence,” plan to seize all of Ghomi’s assets, including his $35 million Newport Beach mansion.

Ghomi could face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

The IEEPA and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR) stictly prohibit the export, re-export, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly to Iran from the United States or by a United States person, wherever located, of any goods, technology, or services to Iran or the Government of Iran without first obtaining authorization from the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

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