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Joyce Eliabachus, 52, took a plea deal from the government at the same that time that charges were announced against an Iranian resident for his role in the scheme.
Peyman Amiri Larijani, 33, was charged with conspiracy to violate Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to smuggle goods from the U.S.
Larijani was also charged in federal court in the District of Columbia in two separate indictments unsealed last Tuesday.
Working from home, Eliabachus -- a naturalized U.S. citizen born in the Philippines -- played a major role in an international smuggling ring that dealt with several Iranian airlines, including "a company that has provided financial, material, and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
Eliabachus, Larijani and others were part of "an international procurement network that surreptitiously acquired large quantities of aircraft components from United States-based manufacturers and vendors and unlawfully exported them to entities in Iran using freight-forwarding companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey," the U.S. attorney said.
"From May 2015 through October 2017, Eliabachus, Larijani, and their conspirators facilitated at least 49 shipments containing 23,554 license-controlled aircraft parts from the United States to Iran, all of which were exported without the required licenses," he said.
Eliabachus -- also known as “Joyce Marie Gundran Manangan" -- conspired with Larijani, whose international network helped initiate the purchase of United States-origin aircraft components on behalf of Larijani’s clients in Iran, Carpenito said.
The network’s client list included Iranian airline companies, several of which have been officially designated by the United States as a threat to national security, foreign policy, or economic interests, he said.
One company, Mahan Air Co., has been subject to U.S. sanctions for providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and for allegedly ferrying arms and reinforcements to designated terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, the U.S. attorney said.
Eliabachus used her company to finalize the purchase and acquisition of the requested components from the various U.S.-based distributors, Carpenito said.
She repackaged and shipped the components to shipping companies in the UAE and Turkey before Larijani and other Iranian conspirators redirected them to locations in Iran, he said.
To cover her tracks, Eliabachus "routinely falsified the true destination and end-user of the aircraft components she acquired," Carpenito said. "She also falsified the true value of the components being exported in order to avoid filing export control forms, which further obscured the network’s illegal activities from law enforcement."
The money from the Iranian purchasers was funneled through Turkish bank accounts held in the names of shell companies controlled by the conspirators before ultimately being transferred into the account of a company created by Eliabachus, he said.
The case made by his office and federal partners at Homeland Security Investigations and the Office of Export Enforcement "snuffed out another source of funds and goods to overseas entities that may endanger our national and economic security," Carpenito said.
U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo scheduled sentencing on Eliabachus's guilty plea to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for Sept. 24.
Handling the case for the government are Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dean C. Sovolos of the U.S. Attorney’s Office National Security Unit and Sarah Devlin of the office’s Asset Recovery and Money Laundering Unit, with assistance from Trial Attorney David Recker of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
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