Office of Public Affairs | Pakistani National Sentenced to 40 Years for Transporting Iranian-Made Superior Standard Weapons

A Pakistani nationwide was sentenced on Oct. 16 to 40 years in jail for prices referring to his transportation of Iranian-made superior typical weaponry.

On June 5, 2025, a federal jury convicted Muhammad Pahlawan of conspiring to supply materials help and sources to terrorists, offering materials help and sources to Iran’s weapons of mass destruction program, offering materials help to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ weapons of mass destruction program, conspiring to and certainly transporting explosive gadgets to the Houthis understanding these explosives could be used to trigger hurt and threatening his crew.

According to court docket data and proof introduced at trial, on the night time of Jan. 11, 2024, U.S. Central Command Navy forces working from the united statesLEWIS B. PULLER, together with Navy SEALs and members of the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team East, boarded an unflagged dhow, a small vessel, within the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia. The U.S. boarding workforce encountered 14 particular person mariners on the vessel, together with Pahlawan.

During a search of the dhow, the U.S. boarding workforce situated and seized Iranian-made superior typical weaponry, together with ballistic missile elements, anti-ship cruise missile elements, and a warhead. The kind of weaponry discovered aboard the dhow is per the weaponry utilized by the Houthi insurgent forces in the course of the time of the charged conspiracy towards service provider ships and U.S. navy ships within the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the October 7 Hamas assault in Israel. During the interdiction, Pahlawan lied to the boarding workforce, instructed different crewmembers to lie, and finally threatened the lives of the crewmembers and their households. Two Navy SEALs — Christopher Chambers and Nathan Gage Ingram — misplaced their lives in the course of the interdiction.

Pahlawan’s January 2024 journey was half of a bigger operation. From in or round August 2023 by in or round January 2024, Pahlawan labored with two Iranian brothers, Shahab Mir’kazei (Shahab), and Yunus Mir’kazei (Yunus), affiliated with  Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to smuggle supplies from Iran to different recipients together with the Houthi insurgent forces in Yemen. Pahlawan accomplished a number of smuggling voyages, coordinated and funded by Shahab and Yunus, by touring with cargo from Iran to the coast of Somalia and transporting that cargo to a different vessel for a nighttime ship-to-ship switch. Pahlawan labored with Shahab and Yunus to organize the dhow for a number of smuggling voyages, obtained particular coordinates from them for the ship-to-ship transfers, and obtained a number of funds from them for his function within the smuggling operation.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John Eisenberg; U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan for the Eastern District of Virginia; Assistant Director Donald M. Holstead of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division; and Assistant Director in Charge Darren B. Cox of the FBI Washington Field Office made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge David J. Novak.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy A. Edwards and Assistant U.S. Attorney Gavin R. Tisdale for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Joseph N. Kaster of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section prosecuted the case. Former Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor Danya Atiyeh supported the case.