Feb. 9 (UPI) — A dual citizen of the United States and Iran will serve a 30-month prison sentence for illegally conspiring to send electronic goods to Iranian and Lebanese terrorist groups.
The Justice Department announced the sentence of 44-year-old Kambiz Attar Kashani of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Kashani allegedly conspired with others to send technology from several U.S. companies to the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizballah, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Both organizations are designated terrorist groups by the Pentagon.
“This is a sobering reminder that illegally exporting material is not an abstract economic concern — it is a crime with a direct impact on the safety of the American people,” said Alan E. Kohler Jr., assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division.
The Justice Department said the co-conspirators used shell companies in the United Arab Emirates to acquire electronic goods and technology to support terrorists. One of the tech companies from which Kashani acquired technology was located in Brooklyn.
The high-end technology supplied to the Middle East was used to make the Central Bank of Iran operate more efficiently and effectively, according to the department.
Kashani and others were under the watch of the U.S. government “for national security and anti-terrorism reasons,” the department said. They allegedly misled the U.S. companies they dealt with, never disclosing that they intended to send goods to Iran.
“His scheme undermined U.S. foreign policy and national security interests and warranted a substantial sentence of incarceration to deter others,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York.
The FBI continues to investigate the case.