July 24, 2020
The FBI has arrested an Iranian-born engineer accused of stealing confidential technical data and sending the information to his brother, who is linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Amin Hasanzadeh, 42, was not accused of spying, however. He faces the much milder charges of interstate transportation of stolen property and fraud for allegedly lying on his application for a green card by not acknowledging he had served in the Iranian military.
Federal officials said that before applying for a US visa in 2010, Hasanzadeh served in the Iranian military and worked at a company linked to Iranian cruise missile development at its Air & Space Organization. The charges were outlined in a criminal complaint unsealed November 6 in federal court in Detroit. The complaint describes a coordinated plan to steal sensitive data about a secret project involving an aerospace industry supercomputer and alleges Hasanzadeh emailed the data to his brother in Iran.
The exact nature of the technical material he is accused of stealing was unclear. The complaint said the brother was involved in Iran’s nuclear program, but did not say whether the technical information Hasanzadeh is accused of sending to his brother was nuclear-related. “We don’t have any concerns that there is a current threat to the safety of the United States,” FBI Special Agent Mara Schneider told The Detroit News, making it sound as if it was nonnuclear technical data.
The court papers did not identify the Michigan firm from which Hasanzadeh is accused of stealing data, so it wasn’t known if it was involved in nuclear work. Hasanzadeh is a hardware engineer who also is a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan. The case appears to be part of a broader effort by Iran to steal trade secrets and technology that have military and defense applications, Eric Brewer, deputy director and fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, told The Detroit News.
“Iran certainly does have as a goal improving its military capabilities and uses espionage as a means at its disposal to acquire information and technology it would have a hard time developing indigenously,” Brewer said. The unsealed complaint accuses Hasanzadeh of stealing confidential documents and technical data from an unnamed company for a year-and-a-half from January 2015 until June 2016. The company is based in Metro Detroit and serves the defense, aerospace and auto industries. “A senior company official advised that any unauthorized disclosure or theft of partner company documents … could be ‘catastrophic’,” the FBI counterintelligence agent in charge of the case wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court. The data Hasanzadeh is accused of stealing was emailed to several people, including his brother, Sina Hassanzadeh, according to court records that identify Sina as an Iranian electrical engineer with expertise in hardware engineering and programming code.
Sina Hassanzadeh’s job responsibilities indicate he has worked on military programs, including for Basamad Azma Co., an entity affiliated with Iran’s cruise missile research, according to the FBI agent. His resume also includes working for a company linked to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics “that contributes to Iran’s proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities and/or its development of nuclear weapons or their delivery systems,” the agent wrote. At the Detroit company for which he worked, Hasanzadeh was assigned to one of the company’s most sensitive projects, what court records describe as a real-time super-computer with applications for the aerospace industry.
Investigators reviewed emails indicating Hasanzadeh applied for a job at the company because the firm’s technologies and projects were of interest to his brother in Iran, the agent wrote. Hasanzadeh started stealing information six days after he started working for the company in January 2015, the agent said. The documents included drawings and schematics that would have allowed his brother in Iran to replicate the designs, according to the court case. In April 2016, Hasanzadeh also emailed a company report to his wife, who received a doctorate late last year after studying in the University of Michigan’s electrical engineering department, the government said.
Investigators checked her University of Michigan email account and discovered thousands of the Detroit company’s documents stored in the university’s cloud storage, according to the FBI. She has not been charged. Hasanzadeh had worked in the university’s College of Engineering since March 2019, university spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. “The university has fully cooperated with the FBI during its investigation.”
