Los Angeles woman arrested at LAX for allegedly aiding Iranian weapons trafficking to Sudan

(SeaPRwire) –   Federal prosecutors stated that a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested on Saturday evening at Los Angeles International Airport, under suspicion of assisting Iran in smuggling weapons to Sudan, a nation in its fourth year of a brutal civil war.

Shamim Mafi will face charges alleging that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced Sunday via social media.

No phone number for Mafi could be located, and it was unclear on Sunday whether she has an attorney able to speak on her behalf.

Essayli shared a photo showing a person wearing an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside an LAX terminal.

Mafi is an Iranian national who received lawful permanent resident status in the United States in 2016, according to Essayli.

A March 12 criminal complaint alleges that Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator operated Atlas International Business, a company based in Oman, through which weapons and ammunition were smuggled. The firm received more than $7 million in payments in 2025.

Separately, court documents show that Mafi and the co-conspirator brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense.

“In connection with this transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (‘IRGC’) to purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint noted.

Mafi is set to appear at U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in federal prison.

The Sudanese civil war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in this North African country, where food supplies are dwindling and millions of people have fled their homes.