California CEO accused of selling computer equipment to Iran, using money for mansion
Federal prosecutors charged a dual U.S.-Iranian national Wednesday for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions against Iran after they said he spent years selling computer equipment to Iranian customers and the Iranian government.
Jamshid Ghomi, 63, made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, on Wednesday to face a charge of conspiracy to violate the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. He did not enter a plea and his arraignment has been set for July 13.
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California alleged that Ghomi, the founder and CEO of Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh Co. Ltd., a Tehran-based computer networking company, spent more than a decade procuring American networking equipment and illegally arranged shipment to the Middle East without any approval by the U.S. government.
The suspect allegedly laundered the money in the U.S. and used some of it to pay for a mansion in Orange County, Essayli alleged.
"Our nation’s laws prohibiting doing business with one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terrorism must be enforced and obeyed," he said.
Attorney information for Ghomi was not immediately available.
Essayli said the federal government is working to seize the mansion.
It is illegal for businesses to "export, re-export, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly" any goods and technology to Iran without authorization from the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Ghomi allegedly used eBay and PayPal accounts from 2011 to 2023 to purchase computer networking equipment from U.S. suppliers, directed the goods to middlemen in the United Arab Emirates and, through a front company, shipped the goods to Iran, according to prosecutors.
"He directed his UAE co-conspirators to keep his name off shipping paperwork, to omit invoices from shipments bound for Iran, and on at least two occasions to hide U.S.-origin computer equipment inside larger shipments," the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California's office alleged in a statement.
Ghomi's company generated annual sales of over $10 million, and his Iranian clientele included Iranian government groups, prosecutors allege.
From 2014 to 2022, his company allegedly sold U.S. "networking, security, and encryption equipment" to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, according to prosecutors.
From 2017 to 2023, prosecutors allege Ghomi sold computer networking equipment to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Ghomi is accused of laundering his sales into the U.S., according to prosecutors.
From 2011 to 2024, he allegedly moved more than $15 million from Iran to his American bank accounts and into a construction escrow account, prosecutors said.
The suspect allegedly purchased a vacant lot in Newport Coast in 2010 for nearly $4.5 million and spent over $10 million over three years constructing his mansion, according to prosecutors.
"From May 2011 to August 2015, foreign-source wires totaling more than $7 million flowed into the escrow account funding the home’s construction," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.
"These wires came from many of the same trading companies as the transfers from FPR’s operating account, were handled by the same FPR employees, and bore the same false descriptions," they added.
Ghomi faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
