Duo charged with illegally procuring US technology for Iranian military
ABC News
Two people are charged with illegally procuring U.S. technology for the Iranian military.
Two men were charged with illegally procuring American technology for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' drone program, according to court documents unsealed by the Justice Department.
Iranian national Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and co-defendant Gary Lam, who was based in China and Hong Kong, were charged in D.C. federal court with procuring microelectronics for the IRGC's program from 2014 to 2015, according to court documents.
Ardakani and his co-conspirators used a "web of foreign companies to accomplish their obfuscation and evasion efforts," the Justice Department alleged. It is unclear how many co-conspirators were alleged to have been involved.
In one instance, according to the charges, Ardakani and Lam "caused an unwitting French company to purchase from a U.S. company several pieces of analog-to-digital converters with applications in wireless and broadband communications, radar and satellite subsystems, multicarrier, multimodal cellular receivers, antenna array positioning and infrared imaging." The technology was shipped to Hong Kong, then "reexported to Iran," according to the court documents.
The case was primarily investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, DOJ said.
