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Why are Iranians with close ties to Iran’s despotic regime living large in the United States –– and aiding Tehran from Los Angeles?
The Trump administration is doing good work exploring that question, deporting compromised foreign nationals, and protecting national security.
Federal authorities on Saturday nabbed yet another Iranian émigrée living the high life in LA — while serving the interests of Iran.
It was the latest in a string of busts by the feds following extensive reporting by The California Post on the luxe LA lives of Iran-aligned elites.
According to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Shamim Mafi, 44, allegedly helped Iran buy arms and evade sanctions through a business she ran from her Woodland Hills home.
She allegedly brokered an arms deal to sell Iranian drones to Sudan, moving money through Turkey and the UAE, as well as through a front company in Oman.
She was also allegedly involved in deals to supply the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including machine guns, rocket launchers, and ammunition.
That’s quite a record of allegedly aiding a US enemy from within the United States.
It’s great to see Team Trump, including Essayli and FBI Director Kash Patel, lay the groundwork to get her out.
Revelations about Mafi raise a range of questions, including why she was here as a lawful permanent resident in the first place, how she obtained a green card –– evidently in 2016 when Obama was president –– and why it took so long to expel her.
Like Sarinasadat Hosseiny, the glam grandniece of the late Iranian terror leader Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was arrested by ICE in LA earlier this month, Mafi was hardly incognito: She boasted of her lavish lifestyle on social media.
Both also entered the U.S. during the Obama administration, which sought closer ties with Iran as it brokered the toothless Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ostensibly slow Iran’s push for nuclear weapons.
It is now beyond clear that the Iranian regime took advantage of Obama.
It used the weak nuclear deal, and the end of sanctions, to increase funding to terror groups, expand its global intelligence network, and continue pursuing nuclear weapons in secret.
President Trump did well in his first term to scuttle that agreement.
And his administration is doing well now to clean up its trailing mess.
Mafi, the alleged arms dealer, had previously been married to a member of Iranian intelligence. She should never have been let into the United States.
Another question raised by recent arrests: How many other Iran allies and sympathizers entered the US during the Obama years, and –– quietly or openly –– aid the regime now?
Since the start of the Iran war, Essayli and the feds have moved quickly, rounding up a surprising number of alleged regime sympathizers, many of whom had flaunted lifestyles they never could enjoy openly in Iran.
The idea that regime operatives may still be strolling around in plain sight in LA is a reminder of how weak our immigration controls have been, until the Trump administration.
We need to know how deeply Iranian intelligence and influence operations have penetrated US society.
If socialites are driving around SoCal in sports cars while doing arms deals on the side, Iran’s reach may be far deeper and broader than terrorist sleeper cells.
It’s also possible that the rise of pro-Iran voices on social media is the product of foreign-national allies of Iran.
Who knows what Essayli and the feds will find.
One thing is certain: This sort of scrutiny should have happened long ago.
English (US)