BOSTON – Two men, including an Iranian-American citizen living in Natick, Massachusetts, have been arrested on charges that they exported to Iran sensitive technology used in a drone attack in Jordan killing three U.S. troops and wounding dozens of other service members early this year, the Justice Department said Monday.
The pair were arrested after FBI specialists who analyzed the drone traced its navigation system to an Iranian company controlled by one of the defendants, which relied on technology funneled from the U.S. by his alleged co-conspirator, officials said.
“We often cite hypothetical risks when we talk about the dangers of American technology ending up in dangerous hands,” said U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts. “Unfortunately, we do not speculate in this situation.”
The defendants were identified as Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, who prosecutors say works at a Massachusetts-based semiconductor company, and Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, who was arrested in Italy on Monday as the Justice Department requested his extradition to Massachusetts.
FBI investigation in Natick
Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of FBI Boston, said Sadeghi is a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Natick, “who we believe left this country that took him in to help bolster the arsenal for one of the world’s most notorious state sponsors of terrorism.”
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Sadeghi was arrested without incident on Monday and made his first court appearance. He was held pending a detention hearing scheduled for December 27.
A home on Woodland Street in Natick was searched by the FBI Monday afternoon in connection with the investigation.
Prosecutors allege that Abedininajafabadi, who also uses the surname Adedini and operates an Iranian company that produces navigation systems for drones, has ties to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards. They allege he conspired with Sadeghi to circumvent U.S. export control laws, including through a front company in Switzerland, and provide sensitive technology to Iran.
Both men are accused of export control violations, and Abedini is separately accused of conspiring to provide material support to Iran.
Levy said the semiconductor company Sadeghi worked for in Massachusetts had been notified of the allegations and is cooperating with the FBI.
“These charges today underscore that the Department of Justice will not let up in its efforts to seek justice for servicemembers killed and injured abroad,” Levy said.
Drone attack in Jordan
U.S. officials blamed the attack in January on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah.
Three Georgian soldiers – Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, sergeant. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross – were killed in the Jan. 28 drone strike on a U.S. outpost in northeastern Jordan called Tower 22.
In the attack, the one-way drone was possibly mistaken for a US drone that was expected to return to the logistics base around the same time and was not shot down.
Instead, the plane crashed into living quarters, killing the three soldiers and injuring more than forty.
At the time, Tower 22 could accommodate approximately 350 American soldiers. It is strategically located between Jordan and Syria, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Iraqi border, and in the months immediately following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s blistering response in Gaza, Iranian-backed militias intensified their attacks. at US military sites in the region.
Following the attack, the US launched a massive counterattack on 85 locations in Iraq and Syria used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iranian-backed militias, and strengthened Tower 22’s defenses.
