An Iranian businessman and chief executive officer of Sanat Danesh Rahpuyan Aflak Company Ltd (SDRA); according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, has procured components for sensitive navigational systems used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization (IRGC ASF SSJO) and other Iranian organizations to produce missiles and drones.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, arranged the export of U.S.-origin goods, services, and technology to SDRA via his Switzerland-based front company Illumove SA; goods shipped included electronic components of the same type used by SDRA to manufacture its Sepehr Navigation System; a Sepehr Navigation System produced by SDRA and sold to the IRGC was recovered from a Shahed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that killed three U.S. service members during a January 2024 attack by IRGC-backed militants on a military base in Jordan.

Indicted in the United States on December 19, 2024, along with Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi on charges of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), violation of the IEEPA and the ITSR, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, and provision and attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death; arrested in Italy on December 16, 2024, at the request of the United States; released by Italian authorities and reportedly returned to Iran on January 12, 2025.

In 2011, co-founded SDRA, which allegedly has sold products to the IRGC Aerospace Force since at least 2014.

In January 2016, allegedly used his university address in Lausanne, Switzerland to order and receive U.S.-origin products, including parts listed on the Commerce Control List with applications in navigation systems; allegedly transported the parts to Iran aboard a commercial flight in 2016 after misrepresenting them to airport officials in Geneva as unrestricted "sample parts"; allegedly continued to use his Swiss address to order and receive electronic components, including microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microcontrollers, from multiple U.S.-based companies from 2016 to 2018.

From 2019 to 2021, allegedly served as a consultant to the IRGC ASF SSJO.

Beginning in 2019, allegedly conspired with Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi to establish a business relationship with Sadeghi's employer, a major semiconductor manufacturing company headquartered in the United States; secured a contract for a joint project with the company in 2021; allegedly used Iran-based SDRA employees to work on the project while misrepresenting them as employees of Illumove; allegedly exploited the project to cause the U.S.-based company to export tens of thousands of dollars of MEMS, integrated circuits, sensors, evaluation boards, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and inertial measurement units to Illumove SA in Switzerland; allegedly reexported U.S.-origin technology and goods obtained for the project to Iran.

On at least 14 occasions between 2022 and 2024, allegedly caused the U.S.-based company to unknowingly export technology including unpublished datasheets to Iran by emailing them to him while he was in Iran; in December 2023, allegedly caused the unwitting export of a datasheet for a component with navigation and direction-finding capabilities and controlled by the U.S. Department of Commerce for anti-terrorism purposes.

Obtained undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from Sharif University of Technology; served as a part-time lecturer at Sharif University from 2015 to 2019.

Born in 1986.

Sanctions

Added on December 18, 2024, to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freezing the person's assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting transactions with U.S. parties, pursuant to Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems; also subject to the Iranian Financial Sanctions Regulations, which restricts the use of the U.S. financial system for transactions involving Iranian entities.

Foreign parties facilitating transactions for the person or otherwise assisting the person may be subject to U.S. sanctions; foreign financial institutions facilitating transactions for the person may be prohibited from opening or maintaining correspondent or payable-through accounts in the United States; subject to heightened U.S. export license requirements (with a presumption of denial) due to involvement in activities related to WMD proliferation.