[Steven W.]

Official Transcript:

We are here today to announce that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York indicted nine Iranians for conspiring to hack into computers and defraud American and foreign universities, businesses, and government agencies.

I want to caution you that an indictment is not a finding of guilt. In the American judicial system, defendants are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty in a court of law.

The indictment alleges that the defendants worked on behalf of the Iranian government, specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

They hacked the computer systems of approximately 320 universities in 22 countries. 144 of the victims are American universities. The defendants stole research that cost the universities approximately $3.4 billion to procure and maintain.

The stolen information was used by the Revolutionary Guard or sold for profit in Iran.

The defendants worked for the Mabna Institute, an organization that two of the defendants founded with the stated purpose of helping Iranian universities access scientific research.

Their work consisted of stealing research through illegal computer intrusions.

The indictment charges nine defendants for committing seven federal crimes. The charges include computer fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, and identity theft.

[STARLIT]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/canadian-iranian-citizen-sentenced-white-plains-federal-court-32-months-prison

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 today’s 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.