January 17-2014
In what looks to be the most stunning violation ever of US sanctions on Iran, an Iranian-American has been jailed on charges of trying to export thousands of pages of design documents for the F-35 stealth attack jet, the most advanced fighter jet in the world that hasn’t yet even entered service.
Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, is an engineer who worked until last August for Pratt & Whitney, the firm making the advanced engines for the F-35. Before that, prosecutors said, he worked for two other US defense contractors that were not identified.
Khazaee is accused of stealing the classified documents and packing them in 44 shipping crates to be sent to Iran and labeled as “household goods.” US customs inspectors checked the crates and found much more than household goods inside. Khazaee was then arrested last Thursday at the airport as he was trying to leave the United States for Iran.
Pratt & Whitney, the sole manufacturer of the aircraft’s engine, declined to comment on how Khazaee slipped “thousands” of pages of documents, diagrams, blueprints and technical manuals out the door before he was laid off in August along with hundreds of other employees.
It was believed to be one the greatest security breaches of all time—though still far behind the huge theft last year of National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden.
Federal authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey before he could board a plane bound for Frankfurt to meet a connecting flight to Tehran, according to the US attorney’s office in Connecticut. It did not, however, appear that Khazaee was planning to move back to Iran. He had a return ticket and reservation for January 21, indicating a plan to remain in Iran only 12 days.
In October, Khazaee hired a company to ship the boxes from his apartment in Manchester, Connecticut, to the port in Long Beach, California, where they were to be loaded onto the NYK Libra, according to court documents.
In late November, customs agents at the port inspected the shipment and found the documents, and days later identified them as belonging to three separate companies.
Documents obtained by federal authorities indicated that the ultimate recipient of the shipment would be Khazaee’s brother-in-law, Mohammad Payendah in Hamadan, the affidavit said.
Khazaee became a naturalized US citizen in 1991, according to the affidavit. He holds US and Iranian passports and has traveled to Iran five times in the past seven years.
The shipment mainly contained documents related to military aircraft engines, including the F-35 Lightning II, which is the world’s most advanced aircraft.
The F-35 is now in initial production and testing. Only about 100 have been built so far. It is due to enter the Marine Corps in 2015, the Air Force in 2016 and the Navy in 2019 and become the key fighter aircraft for all three services in striking ground targets. The United States plans to buy 2,443 of the planes. Twelve US allies have also signed on to buy the aircraft, which will cost $150 million to $200 million each depending on the variant.
If convicted on all charges, Khazaee would face a maximum prison term of 10 years and fines of up to $250,000.
The shipment also included cookware, dishes, an English-Persian dictionary, medicine bottles, college documents, printed emails, an expired Iranian passport and credit card bills, according to the affidavit.
Khazaee worked on a team at Pratt that conducted strength and durability evaluations for components in all of the company’s engines, including the F119 engine for the military’s F-22 Raptor, another stealth fighter and the world’s newest fighter jet until the F-35 came along.
He was laid off in August, when Pratt cut about 400 positions throughout the company.
Months later Khazaee left his Connecticut apartment and moved to Indianapolis.
Khazaee previously had lived in Indianapolis in 2005, when he filed for bankruptcy after amassing tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. According to court documents, he had $69 in cash and owed $53,681.46 when he filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Mark Mason Alexander, 53, who was born Musa Mahmood Ahmed, was sentenced to 18 months for sending water-jet cutting machines manufactured by the Georgia firm he owned to Iran. The Hydrajet machines are used for precision cutting of such materials as aluminum, glass, granite and steel.
The machines were shipped to a firm in the UAE and then transshipped to Iran. Alexander also sent a technician into Iran in 2008 to train Iranian staff in the use of the equipment.
In yet another sanctions violation case, Indian police last week arrested Shahin Sabooni, who was born in India, is married to an Iranian and holds Canadian citizenship. She flew from Tehran to Mumbai last week and was arrested debarking because of an American warrant for her arrest that was issued in 2009.
Indian news reports said she is accused of sending to Iran 13 different types of aircraft parts for the F-5 Tiger fighter jet, the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter, the CH-53 military transport helicopter, the F-14 Tomcat fighter and the UH-1 Huey military helicopter.
The Indian news reports said she worked with four men, apparently all Iranians, named Reza Abedi-pur, Amir-Hossein Atabaki, Mohammad-Javad- Mohammad Esmaeli and Mohammad-Javad Sabouni. It was not known if the last named is her husband.
