Federal agents arrested a 63-year-old dual U.S.-Iranian citizen at his multimillion-dollar Southern California home on charges that he spent more than a decade funneling American-made computer networking gear to Iran's nuclear and military establishments, all while living large in Newport Beach on money the government says he laundered into the country and hid from the IRS.
Jamshid Ghomi, the founder, owner, and CEO of Tehran-based Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh Co. Ltd., faces a single count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
The case lays bare a staggering alleged sanctions-evasion operation: more than 250 metric tons of U.S.-origin networking equipment smuggled into Iran between 2014 and 2018 alone, annual sales exceeding $10 million, hundreds of Iranian companies and government entities on the customer list, and more than $15 million in proceeds routed back into American bank accounts, much of it allegedly used to build an Orange County mansion now valued at $35 million.
The federal criminal complaint and accompanying affidavit describe a sprawling procurement-and-smuggling network that stretched from American suppliers in Minnesota and Nebraska to intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates and, finally, to end users inside the Islamic Republic.
Prosecutors allege Ghomi used FPR to procure U.S.-origin networking, security, and encryption equipment for Iranian customers without ever obtaining a license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the authorization required under the IEEPA and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.
Between 2011 and 2015, the DOJ says, Ghomi personally made more than 400 purchases of computer-networking equipment using his own eBay and PayPal accounts, directing the goods to intermediaries in the UAE. From there, freight forwarders in Dubai allegedly moved the shipments onward to Iran while paperwork was falsified or stripped of invoices to conceal the true destination.
Just The News reported that prosecutors allege Ghomi directed co-conspirators to keep his name off shipping documents and omit invoices from shipments, a deliberate effort to obscure his role in the pipeline.
As recently as 2023, the DOJ alleges, Ghomi personally negotiated the purchase of U.S.-origin networking equipment directly from suppliers in Minnesota and Nebraska, routing it through a UAE front company and on to FPR in Tehran.
The customers at the end of this pipeline are what make the case a national security matter rather than a garden-variety export violation.
From 2017 to 2023, the DOJ alleges, FPR supplied U.S.-origin computer networking equipment to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the government agency responsible for Iran's nuclear program, including its centrifuge and uranium-enrichment operations. The U.S. State Department sanctioned the AEOI in 2020 for playing a leading role in Iran's nonperformance of nuclear commitments, including exceeding limits on its uranium stockpile and enrichment levels.
Despite those sanctions, the affidavit states, the AEOI required FPR to register as an approved vendor, and FPR did so in 2021 and 2022. That timeline means the Tehran company was signing up as a supplier to a sanctioned nuclear agency even after the State Department had formally designated it.
The defense side of the ledger is equally alarming. From 2014 to 2022, prosecutors allege FPR supplied U.S.-origin networking, security, and encryption equipment to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and affiliated military and defense-electronics entities. A 2017 FPR contract with Iran Computer Industries, signed by Ghomi himself, identified the buyer as "Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, Iran Computer Industries."
In one internal FPR communication cited in the affidavit, Iran was referred to as the "Motherland." Wire transfers were labeled "Buying Goods" or "For Consulting Fees", descriptions prosecutors say were designed to disguise the true nature of the payments.
The financial side of the case reads like a textbook in sanctions-laundering. The DOJ alleges Ghomi moved more than $15 million from Iran into U.S. bank accounts and a construction escrow account from 2011 to 2024. The money came through trading companies and exchange houses in the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, and Turkey.
Much of it went toward real estate. In March 2010, Ghomi purchased a vacant lot in Newport Coast for $4,490,000. He then spent roughly $10,490,371 constructing a residence between 2010 and 2013. From May 2011 to August 2015, foreign-source wires totaling more than $7 million flowed into the escrow account funding that construction.
And here is where the case turns from a national security prosecution into a tax fraud allegation as well. The DOJ says Ghomi's highest reported income in any year was $20,684. Despite that modest figure, he reported more than $1.7 million in home-mortgage interest and $1.25 million in state and local real-estate taxes on his federal income tax returns. He also claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit, a benefit for low-income workers, in seven different tax years.
Ghomi allegedly told the IRS that the foreign funds were a foreign inheritance. Prosecutors say that was false.
Senior federal officials used blunt language in announcing the arrest. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg framed the case as a direct challenge to Iran's nuclear ambitions:
"As alleged, Ghomi enriched himself by supplying U.S. technology to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and other sanctioned entities responsible for the Iran's nuclear program. The National Security Division will hold accountable those who violate our laws to further Iran's nuclear ambitions."
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California went further, as the New York Post reported, pledging asset seizure alongside a prison sentence:
"Ghomi is accused of aiding our declared enemies by selling U.S.-origin computer networking parts to Iran and earning millions of dollars in violation of U.S. sanction laws. Our nation's laws prohibiting doing business with one of the world's largest state sponsors of terrorism must be enforced and obeyed. We will hold him accountable by seeking an appropriate prison sentence and by seizing his assets, including his $35 million Newport Beach mansion."
Acting Special Agent in Charge Darren Lian of the IRS Criminal Investigation Los Angeles Field Office described the arrest as part of a broader effort to protect U.S. technology from reaching hostile governments:
"As alleged, Mr. Ghomi spent years exploiting United States financial systems and procurement channels to move controlled equipment to Iran while hiding his activities behind front companies and falsified documentation. We will continue to work with our partners to safeguard national security by utilizing our financial investigative expertise."
The investigation brought together IRS Criminal Investigation and the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, with prosecution handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney David C. Lachman and support from the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Fox News reported that the technology Ghomi allegedly shipped was export-restricted, reinforcing the national security dimension of the case.
Ghomi was expected to make his initial appearance Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. The DOJ noted, as it must, that a complaint is merely an allegation and that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Newsmax reported that the arrest took place during a raid at the Newport Beach mansion itself, adding a dramatic coda to a case built around that very property, a residence prosecutors say was constructed with the proceeds of illegal sanctions evasion.
The complaint leaves several threads dangling. The specific equipment models and manufacturers involved have not been publicly identified. The names of the alleged UAE co-conspirators, front companies, freight forwarders, and exchange houses remain under seal or undisclosed. Whether Ghomi has retained counsel or entered a plea was not addressed in the DOJ announcement. And the full roster of Iranian government entities that allegedly received the equipment, beyond the AEOI and Ministry of Defense affiliates, has not been made public.
Those gaps matter. The scope of the alleged scheme, more than a decade, hundreds of customers, 250-plus metric tons of equipment, suggests the investigation may not end with a single defendant.
Iran's nuclear program remains one of the most dangerous proliferation threats on the planet. Every router, every encryption device, every piece of networking hardware that reaches the AEOI or the Ministry of Defense strengthens an apparatus that the United States has spent decades trying to constrain through sanctions, diplomacy, and deterrence.
If the DOJ's allegations hold up, Ghomi didn't just break export laws. He allegedly built a business model around defeating them, registering as a vendor with a sanctioned nuclear agency, signing contracts that named the Iranian military as the buyer, and using eBay to buy the gear. All while reporting $20,684 in annual income and collecting the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Sanctions only work if they carry consequences. A $35 million mansion built on the proceeds of arming a hostile regime is what happens when they don't, until someone finally enforces them.
