A former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contractor pleaded guilty Wednesday to working as an agent of Iran and sharing sensitive U.S. airport data with Iranian intelligence officers.
Abouzar Rahmati, 42, admitted to conspiring to act and acting as an agent of Iran on U.S. soil “without prior notification to the Attorney General,” according to a press release from the Justice Department (DOJ).
Court documents show that from “at least” December 2017 to June 2024, Rahmati cooperated with the Iranian government “using a cover story to hide his conduct, obtaining employment with an FAA contractor with access to sensitive non-public information about the U.S. aviation sector, and obtaining open-source and non-public materials about the U.S. solar energy industry and providing it to Iranian intelligence officers,” the DOJ release states.
The information he shared — including documents related to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, U.S. airports and U.S. air traffic control towers — was given by Rahmati to his Iran-based brother., per the department. The documents were then given to Iranian intelligence officials on his behalf in mid-2022, the court filing shows.
The guilty plea comes as the U.S. and Iran have recently engaged in indirect talks around Tehran’s nuclear program despite a long-standing tense relationship between the two nations.
Envoys from Iran and the U.S. recently finished the first round of “positive” and “constructive” discussions in Oman, agreeing to move forward with the discussion this weekend, according to the Trump administration.
U.S. national security experts have pushed back on President Trump’s decision to open talks with the Middle East nation, while comparing the latest round of talks to former President Obama’s previous agreement with Iran. Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, in 2018.