Former Federal Aviation Administration contractor, Abouzar Rahmati, 42, a naturalized U.S. citizen and resident of Great Falls, Virginia, was indicted for acting and conspiring to act as an agent of the Iranian government in the United States without prior notice to the Attorney General.
He made his initial appearance in the District of Columbia Friday afternoon.
According to Zillow, the median price for a home in Great Falls is $1,590,384.
In his indictment, from at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati conspired with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States.
This included meeting with Iranian intelligence officers in Iran, communicating with co-conspirators using a cover story to hide his conduct, obtaining employment with an FAA contractor with access to sensitive non-public information, and obtaining open-source and non-public materials about the U.S. solar energy industry and providing it to Iranian intelligence.
According to the indictment, from June 2009 to May 2010, Rahmati served as a First Lieutenant in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — an Iranian military and counterintelligence organization under the authority of the Supreme Leader of Iran.
After being discharged from the IRGC, Rahmati lied to the United States government regarding his military service with the IRGC in order to, among other things, gain employment as a U.S. government contractor.
In August 2017, Rahmati offered his services to the Iranian government through a senior Iranian government official who previously worked in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and with whom Rahmati had previously attended university.
Four months later, in December 2017, Rahmati traveled to Iran, where he met with Iranian intelligence operatives and government officials and agreed to obtain information about the U.S. solar energy industry, to provide that information to Iranian officials, and to conduct future communications under a cover story based on purported discussions about research with fellow academics.
After Rahmati returned to the United States in December 2017, he obtained various non-public and open-source materials related to the U.S. solar energy industry and provided them to an Iranian government official.
Rahmati also applied for multiple positions with private companies and U.S. government entities that would provide him with access to sensitive information, eventually obtaining a position with U.S. Company 1 supporting the FAA on a contract related to the power and electrical architecture of the FAA’s National Airspace System (NAS).
After Rahmati obtained the position, he informed an Iranian intelligence officer that he was “in the process of moving to and joining a new company” and that they could “work more effectively if it is finalized.”
“As alleged, the defendant conspired with Iranian officials and intelligence operatives, even lying to obtain employment as a U.S. government contractor only to then share sensitive government materials with Iran,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “When undisclosed agents of Iran or any other foreign government seek to infiltrate American companies or government agencies, the Justice Department will use every available tool to identify them and bring them to justice.”
“This defendant is charged with infiltrating a U.S. agency with the intent of providing Iran with sensitive information vital to our national security,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “Thanks to the great work of the FBI and the FAA’s investigators, this defendant was stopped in his tracks and a known adversary’s plot was exposed.”
The FBI indicates that “in response to tasking from Iranian officials, and in furtherance of his agency relationship with the Government of Iran, Rahmati exploited his employment with U.S. Company 1 by downloading sensitive non-public U.S. Company 1 documents related to the FAA, storing them on removable media, and taking them to Iran, where he provided the documents to the Government of Iran in April 2022.”
“These included documents related to the NAS that would give a person unfamiliar with NAS facility engineering a reasonable understanding of how the NAS power and electrical architecture is configured.”
After he returned to the United States in April 2022, in response to tasking from Iranian government officials, Rahmati sent additional information relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, U.S. airports, and U.S. air traffic control towers to his brother, a co-conspirator, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on behalf of Rahmati.
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The vetting process has apparently gone soft.
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I’m thinking that, between those of the Muslim belief, surely they must have a code of ethics, but when it comes to dealing with those they consider infidels, no ethics are necessary. There is story after story in which they do the most terrible things with impunity.
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Yes, many stories!
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