Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York (FBI), announced that ALI SOOFI, a Canadian-Iranian dual citizen, was sentenced to 32 months in prison for his participation in a conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). SOOFI was charged and arrested by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) following a federal investigation. SOOFI pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate IEEPA on September 7, 2017, before U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román, who imposed todays sentence.
Between 2014 and December 2016, SOOFI conspired to export military items from the United States to Iran, both directly and through transshipment to intermediary countries, without a license. In particular, SOOFI acted as a broker on behalf of Iranian clients, including a high-ranking official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who sought American military technology.