Overview
- A federal grand jury in the Northern District of California charged Samaneh Ghandali, Soroor Ghandali, and Mohammadjavad Khosravi with conspiracy, trade‑secret theft, attempted theft, and obstruction following arrests and initial court appearances in San Jose.
- Prosecutors allege hundreds of files tied to processor security and cryptography were exfiltrated from Google and other firms to third‑party platforms, personal devices, other employers’ systems, and to Iran.
- Google says routine internal monitoring detected suspicious activity in August 2023, after which access was revoked and the company referred the matter to law enforcement.
- The indictment details concealment efforts that included false sworn statements, deletion of records, and manually photographing confidential screens, including images captured the night before travel to Iran in December 2023.
- If convicted, each defendant faces up to 10 years per trade‑secret count and up to 20 years for obstruction, while the indictment does not identify recipients in Iran and the defendants are presumed innocent.