A Waialua man was convicted Monday of funneling funds to Iran in defiance of U.S. sanctions.
Between 2016 and 2022, Arash Einolghozati, 37, made dozens of online transfers, sending money and cryptocurrency to people in Iran, without a license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury authorizing him to do so.
The Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations prohibit any person in the U.S. from transporting any goods or services, including funds, to Iran or anyone within Iran. Nonetheless, according to an FBI investigation, Einolghozati conspired with several others to do exactly that.
An FBI investigator reported that Einolghozati immigrated to the U.S. from Iran and became a lawful permanent resident here around April 2016. Since his arrival, Einolghozati resided in part in Hawai‘i.
Einolghozati reportedly communicated via email with two other people — an American and a Canadian citizen — in 2017, discussing the transfer of funds to unspecified people in Iran. In that conversation, Einolghozati reportedly stated he wanted to move up to $90,000 to the country.
Then, in 2017, Einolghozati used the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to transfer cryptocurrencies valued at about $18,000 to a user the FBI investigator believed was an Iranian citizen.
In 2020, Einolghozati then made 72 separate transactions which transferred about $108,000 in cryptocurrency to another Iranian Coinbase user.
The FBI investigator also noted several other miscellaneous Coinbase transactions Einolghozati made between 2020 and 2021 to various users, including one series of 19 payments totaling nearly $36,000 to one user, who, the investigator believed, transferred the money to different Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges.
An affidavit by the FBI investigator claimed that the FBI interviewed Einolghozati in October of 2024. During the interview, Einolghozati reportedly claimed he never knowingly sent any cryptocurrency to Iranian exchanges; he claimed his transactions were sent to repay a lost bet to one friend, to pay for another friend’s wife’s education, or to make crypto investments, not knowing the end recipients were in Iran.
However, the FBI investigator noted, these claims were contradicted by Einolghozati’s online conversations: one such conversation began with Einolghozati asking (in translated Farsi) “Can I send you dollars in some way and you give it to someone in Iran?”
Einolghozati was charged in 2024 with violating the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations. On July 13, he pled guilty. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million, and will be sentenced on Oct. 29.
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