April 25, 2025
Abouzar Rahmati, a 42- year-old naturalized US citizen working as a Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) contractor, has pled guilty to “acting as an agent of the Iranian government in the United States,” one step down from a charge of espionage, the US Justice Department confirmed April 16.
Court documents showed that Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives from at least December 2017 until June 2024, when he was apparently arrested.
Rahmati, resident of Great Falls, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, was born in Iran, according to Iran International, and was a Pasdar officer from June 2009 to May 2010, according to Fox News.
The Justice Department did not say when he emigrated to the United States.
He obtained employment with an FAA contractor to gain access to sensitive “non-public information about the US aviation sector” and obtain “open source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” before providing it to Iranian handlers, the Justice Department said.
Rahmati offered his services to Tehran through a “senior Iranian government official” who previously worked in Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. The two attended university together, the Justice Department added.
Rahmati also “exploited his employment as an FAA contractor” by working for “US COMPANY 1,” downloading at least 172 gigabytes of files, including “sensitive access-controlled FAA documents related to the National Aerospace System (NAS), NAS Airport Surveillance Radar systems, and radio frequency data.” “US COMPANY 1” is used by the Justice Department to refer to a US-based company that is being kept anonymous in their statements.
It appeared from the Justice Department description that Iran was gathering data so that it would be able to disrupt commercial aircraft flights in the United States and perhaps cause mass crashes by planes. But the Justice Department did not attribute any goals to Iran’s use of Rahmati’s material.
Rahmati also sent information “relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers” to his brother, who lived in Iran, and acted on his behalf as an intermediary with Iranian intelligence.
Rahmati was indicted last September and is scheduled for sentencing August 26. According to the Justice Department, he faces a “maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison for acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General, and up to five years in prison for conspiracy.
