Former FAA Contractor Pleads Guilty to Spying for Iranian Government

According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday, 42-year-old Abouzar Rahmati of Great Falls, Virginia, had worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence officers from at least December 2017 through June 2024.

The DOJ stated that Rahmati met with Iranian intelligence officers in Iran and communicated with them using a cover story to hide his conduct. He was employed as a FAA contractor with “access to sensitive non-public information about the U.S. aviation sector,” the release stated.

Rahmati also provided both open-source and private materials about the U.S. solar energy industry to Iranian intelligence officers.

“In August 2017, Rahmati offered his services to the Iranian government through a senior Iranian government official who previously worked in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and with whom Rahmati had previously attended university,” the release stated. 

Four months later, he traveled to Iran and met with Iranian intelligence operatives and government officials. There, he agreed to attain information about the U.S. solar energy industry and send it to Iranian officials.

After returning to the U.S. in 2018, Rahmati procured “various private and open source materials related to the U.S. solar energy industry” and gave them to an official from the office of Iran’s vice president of science and technology.

The DOJ news release stated he later downloaded at least 172 gigabytes of files from an unnamed U.S. company and delivered them to Iran in April 2022. These files included restricted FAA documents related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) and NAS Airport Surveillance Radar systems and radio frequency data.

Rahmati is scheduled to be sentenced on August 26, where he faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison for acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general. He also faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy.

“A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors,” the release stated.