Federal prosecutors arrested a Southern California technology executive Wednesday on charges he spent more than a decade smuggling U.S.-origin computer networking and encryption equipment to Iran’s nuclear and military programs, laundering more than $15 million in the process.
Jamshid Ghomi, 63, of Newport Coast, California, faces a federal criminal complaint charging him with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Ghomi is the CEO of Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh Co. Ltd., a Tehran-based technology company. The case was filed in the Central District of California.
From 2011 through 2023, prosecutors allege Ghomi used personal eBay and PayPal accounts along with front companies and freight forwarders in the United Arab Emirates to route controlled U.S. technology to Iranian customers without obtaining the required export licenses from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
His buyers included some of Iran’s most sensitive state institutions. From 2017 to 2023, Ghomi’s company supplied networking equipment directly to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the body overseeing the country’s uranium enrichment and nuclear programs. From 2014 to 2022, the company also provided security and encryption hardware to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
Between 2014 and 2018 alone, authorities say Ghomi orchestrated the smuggling of more than 250 metric tons of computer equipment into Iran through Dubai. FPR’s annual sales exceeded $10 million, with its customer base made up primarily of sensitive Iranian state entities, officials said.
In 2023, Ghomi personally negotiated direct equipment purchases from suppliers in Minnesota and Nebraska, routing the goods through a UAE front company.
To move the proceeds back into the United States, Ghomi allegedly laundered more than $15 million through shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Turkey, and the UAE. He reportedly disguised the transfers on his tax returns as “foreign inheritances” or “consulting fees.” Despite those funds financing the construction of a $35 million custom mansion in Newport Coast, Ghomi reported a maximum of $20,684 in income in any single year and claimed the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, a benefit designed for low-income families, across seven separate tax years.
“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,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “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.”
