A Newport Beach man was charged with violating the U.S. sanctions against Iran by supplying American security and encryption equipment to the Iranian regime, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday.
Jamshid Ghomi, 63, was arrested by federal authorities for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which prohibits Americans to directly or indirectly exporting or supplying any goods or technology to the government of Iran.
Ghomi, who owns a Tehran-based computer networking company, used his business to obtain networking equipment from the U.S. then supplied it Iran, including the Iranian military and nuclear program for more than a decade, the DOJ alleged.
Large quantities of U.S. technology were purchased with his eBay and PayPal accounts, with some of them coming directly from suppliers in Minnesota and Nebraska before being routed to the United Arab Emirates, federal authorities said.
“From 2014 to 2018, Ghomi arranged the smuggling of more than 250 metric tons (275.6 U.S. tons) of networking equipment into Iran, using freight forwarders and intermediaries in Dubai to disguise that Iran was the true destination,” the DOJ said in a statement.
The dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran was never registered with the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to conduct foreign transactions.
The proceeds from the sale — estimated to be more than $15 million during a 13-year period — were transferred to his accounted in the U.S. via exchange companies in the British Virgin Islands, Honking, Turkey and the UAE, according to the DOJ. Ghomi is also accused of failing to report the income as a foreign inheritance to the IRS.
With the sales revenue, the Orange County man is accused of purchasing a piece of land and building a mansion in Newport Coast.
If convicted as charged, Ghomi would face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, according to the DOJ.