Iranian national sentenced to 18 months for routing US sonar technology via China

SEATTLE, September 25, 2026 — Reza Dindar, a 44-year-old Iranian citizen, was sentenced in US District Court in Seattle to 18 months in prison for a scheme to evade US trade sanctions and export controls by routing sensitive US technology to Iran through China, the Justice Department said.

Dindar was also fined $10,000 and ordered to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term. He pleaded guilty in June to two counts of exporting goods to an embargoed country and two counts of smuggling goods from the United States.

According to his plea agreement, Dindar managed New Port Sourcing Solutions in Xi’an, China, between 2010 and 2014. Prosecutors said the company concealed that it was acquiring US-origin goods for companies in Iran and falsely represented that China was their final destination.

In 2011 and 2012, Dindar and his co-conspirators used false representations to purchase components for three military sonar systems from a Washington state company, according to the Justice Department. The buyers claimed the equipment was intended for a Chinese company, but prosecutors said the components were to be transshipped through China to Iran in violation of US export restrictions.

A federal grand jury indicted Dindar in August 2014. He remained outside US custody for more than a decade before being arrested in Panama in July 2025 at the request of the United States. Panama extradited him to the United States in April 2026, and he pleaded guilty about six weeks later.

US District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez noted that the offenses occurred more than a decade ago and that Dindar had spent significant time in a Panamanian prison. Prosecutors sought the 18-month sentence, arguing that imprisonment was necessary to deter violations of US export controls imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with Panamanian authorities on Dindar’s arrest and extradition, with assistance from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.