American Jailed For Smuggling Tech, Electronic Goods to Iran

A federal court in Brooklyn ruled the man had sent US-made hardware and software to clients that included the Central Bank of Iran via dummy companies registered in the UAE. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

A dual US/Iranian national has been sentenced to jail for 30 months by a federal court in Brooklyn after he smuggled banned tech to Iran via dummy companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a statement on the ruling, The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Kambiz Attar Kashani, 44, had conspired to illegally export US goods and technology to end users in Iran that included the country’s Central Bank.

According to the DOJ, between 2019 and 2021 Kashani and his accomplices used two dummy companies in the UAE to secure electronic goods and technology from US companies for clients that included the Central Bank of Iran, an agency that the US government believes has “materially supported” listed terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

The supplied technology and goods in question included “six power supplies; two subscriptions to a proprietary computer software program, several fixed attenuators, two subscriptions to operating software, and several storage systems.”

In a comment on the sentencing, Alan E. Kohler Jr, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division said: “This is a sobering reminder that illegally exporting material is not an abstract economic concern – it is a crime with a direct impact on the safety of the American people.”

Read the article by Marco Marcelline in PC Mag.