Malekpour was convicted for lying to authorities about his reason for travelling to the US. When Malekpour crossed the border from Canada May 18, he told a US border official he was on his way to pick up his wife from a Target department store in Bellingham, Washington, located just south of the border. But Jennifer Hinckley, a special agent with the US customs agency, knew the store was already closed by the time Malekpour crossed the border. That made her suspicious.
US border guards allowed Malekpour entry, but tailed him. He didn’t go to the Target outlet in Bellingham, Washington, but to a gun shop hundreds of miles away in McMinnville, Oregon, where he loaded a cache of firearms into his car and then drove back to a storage facility in Ferndale, Washington, where agents discovered more than two dozen military-style firearms plus ammunition.
According to court documents, US agents approached Malekpour and asked to search his car when he arrived at the storage site in Ferndale. Malekpour consented, at which point the border guards found the cache of weapons. Law enforcement agents found two shotguns, two semi-automatic handguns and approximately 480 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition in the car before Malekpour reconsidered and revoked his consent.
US officers then got warrants to search the storage locker, where they found: a .50-calibre sniper rifle, two .308-calibre sniper rifles, three .300-calibre sniper rifles, eight law-enforcement style .233-caliber rifles, three Glock semi-automatic handguns, 100 .223-calibre magazines, 3,800 rounds of .223-calibre ammunition and several other firearms-related items. State documents estimate the total value of the firearms and ammunition at well over $30,000.
During their car search, officials also uncovered documents that indicated Malekpour had been a licensed firearms dealer in Canada, and that his license had been revoked in 2009 after he was caught selling firearms over the Internet, which is illegal in Canada. Officials said he may still have a valid license to own, but not sell, firearms and has six registered firearms and a Canadian hunting license. But regardless of any hunting permit, they said the size and type of firearms and ammunition was not consistent with what a recreational hunter would use.
Though the firearms are not illegal in the US, lying about owning them and being a “non-immigrant alien” in possession of them are crimes in the US.
Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the US prosecutor’s office in Seattle, told The Province that Malekpour had travelled to Iran three times in the previous year. “One reason he obtained a new passport was because he felt the stamps from his entry into Iran were creating issues at the border, making people more focused on him,” Langlie said, adding, “I don’t believe there was any testimony that the weapons were destined for Iran.”
Langlie said Malekpour, who was a resident of California in 2009, met an unsuspecting Las Vegas man on a flight whom Malekpour reportedly tricked into helping him set up the Oregon gun shop. That allowed Malekpour to order the firearms without tipping authorities that he was behind the scheme, Langlie said.
Malekpour, who has been in custody since his arrest May 19, has a sentencing hearing scheduled for April 11. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
