Tech titan arrested at $35m mansion over selling US equipment to Iran’s military and nuclear programs

A California tech boss accused of arming Iran’s nuclear and military machine has been dragged from his $35 million ocean-view mansion in handcuffs. 

Jamshid Ghomi, 63, a dual Iranian-US national, sold sophisticated American networking, security and encryption gear to the regime for more than a decade, prosecutors allege.  

He is charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, with the equipment flowing to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the regime’s Ministry of Defense, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday. 

He and his co-conspirators referred to Iran as ‘Motherland’ in their private messages.

Ghomi made more than 400 purchases on his eBay and PayPal accounts from 2011 to 2015, which were routed through intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates.

More than 250 metric tons of networking kit was smuggled into Iran between 2014 and 2018 using freight forwarders in Dubai. 

Ghomi allegedly used his company, Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh (FPR), as the vehicle for the smuggling operation, with annual sales topping $10 million. 

He told the IRS the more than $15 million he moved from Iran into US accounts was a foreign inheritance, with the cash allegedly laundered through shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Turkey and the UAE. 

Jamshid Ghomi, 63, a dual Iranian-US of Newport Coast, California, is charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the Department of Justice announced Wednesday

Ghomi’s federal tax returns reported almost no income, his highest reported income in any year being $20,684. While claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, a break for low-income earners, in seven tax year, Ghomi built a huge mansion from the proceeds of his alleged crimes

His federal tax returns reported almost no income, the highest in any year just $20,684. 

Ghomi claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit, a break for low-income earners, in seven separate tax years, even as he built a vast mansion with the proceeds of his alleged crimes. 

The sprawling 14,000-square-foot home, guarded by iron gates, sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the California Post reported. 

Ghomi bought the vacant lot for $4.49 million in March 2010, then spent roughly $10.49 million building the residence over the next three years.

More than $7 million in foreign wires flowed into the escrow account funding the construction between May 2011 and August 2015, handled by the same FPR employees and bearing the same false labels as the company’s sales revenue, according to the DOJ.

Iran’s atomic agency, sanctioned by the US in 2020 over enrichment breaches, made FPR register as an approved vendor in 2021 and 2022, the affidavit states.

The company supplied the nuclear body from 2017 to 2023 and Iran’s defense ministry from 2014 to 2022. 

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said: ‘We will hold him accountable by seeking an appropriate prison sentence and by seizing his assets, including his $35 million Newport Beach mansion.’

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran, October 13, 2024

Essayli said Ghomi was ‘aiding our declared enemies’ and ‘doing business with one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terrorism.’

Ghomi, who was scheduled to appear at court in Santa Ana in Orange County this afternoon, faces up to 20 years in jail.