Federal prosecutors have charged two men with illegally supplying American technology to an Iranian company linked to a Middle East drone attack that killed three U.S. soldiers from Georgia, one from Waycross.
Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a Massachusetts resident considered a dual American and Iranian citizen, was arrested Monday and faces charges with Mohammad Abedini, the founder of an Iranian company that makes navigation modules for drones used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston said.
Abedini, who lives in Tehran, was arrested Monday in Italy, where American officials are seeking his extradition.
“If you provide support to the Iranian regime’s campaign of terror and violence targeting Americans ― we will find you, arrest you, and hold you accountable in a U.S. court, no matter where you are,” Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a release.
The arrests are fallout from a Jan. 28 attack on an American military base in Jordan called Tower 22 that killed Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross; Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Ga. and Willingboro, N.J.; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah.
All three were part of the 926th Engineer Brigade, an Army Reserve combat engineer brigade at Fort Moore, Ga. Sanders, 24, and Moffett, 23, were horizontal construction engineers while Rivers, 46, was an interior electrician. Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant.
The soldiers were killed, and about 40 other service members injured, when “a one-way uncrewed aerial system” flew into container housing units at the 350-person base near the Syrian border, the Defense Department said in January. American military reprisals followed, including airstrikes by B-1B bombers on Iranian-connected groups in Iraq and Syria in February.
Federal officials linked Monday’s arrests back to the attack in Jordan and said an analysis of a drone recovered from the attack site showed it was an Iranian Shahed UAV and that it used a navigation system manufactured by Abedini’s company, known by the initials SDRA.
Prosecutors charged that Sadeghi, who now works for a microelectronics manufacturer in Massachusetts, traveled to Iran around 2016 to request funding from a foundation tied to Iran’s government, then created an Iranian company that worked with SDRA.
Sadeghi helped Abedini skirt export laws to get American-made electronic components for use in Iran, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston charged, adding that some electronic components Abedini’s firm imported to Iran were the same type of components used in SDRA’s navigation system.
“We believe these two men conspired to illegally procure sophisticated U.S. technology, made right here in Massachusetts, for one of the world’s most infamous state sponsors of terrorism,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, said in written remarks.
Cohen said the prosecution “demonstrates our ongoing commitment to bring to justice anyone who seeks to commit acts of terror against the United States and our allies.”
Sadeghi and Abedini were charged with conspiring to violate America’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which has been used to control trade with Iran. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Abedini is also charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). He could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted of that.
Source » jacksonville