An Iranian woman has pleaded guilty in the United States of trying to illegally export technology to her home country.
Negar Ghodskani, 40, entered her guilty plea Friday in federal court in the northern state of Minnesota.
According to court documents, Ghodskani worked for a Tehran company, Fana Moj, from 2008 to 2011 and established with a co-defendant another company in Malaysia that operated as a front for Fana Moj.
As part of the conspiracy, Ghodskani falsely represented herself as an employee of the Malaysian company in order to acquire export-controlled technology from the United States. In her guilty plea, Ghodskani said she concealed the ultimate destination for the technology.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Fana Moj was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2017 as a company "providing financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ghodskani was arrested in Australia in 2017 and had fought her extradition for several years.
A co-defendant in the case, Alireza Jalali, pleaded guilty in November 2017 and was sentenced in March 2018.
