The US Attorney’s Office has seized approximately $584,741 in cryptocurrency owned by an Iranian national due to his involvement in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ drone and ballistic missile program.
Mohammad Abedini is charged with providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations resulting in death, as well as the intention to procure sensitive US technology used in military drones.
The Massachusetts District branch of the US Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday that it has seized Tether (otherwise known as USDT, which refers to a type of stablecoin pegged to the US dollar) from an unhosted cryptocurrency wallet alleged to be controlled by Abedini.
Originating from Tehran, Abedini, 39, was detained in Italy by local authorities on December 16, 2024, but was released a month later and is now believed to be back in Iran.
According to court documents, Abedini is the founder and managing director of SDRA, an Iranian company that manufactures navigation modules used in the IRGC’s military drone program.
SDRA’s primary business is the sale of a navigation system, known as the Sepehr Navigation System, to the Revolutionary Guards, which is designated as a terrorist organization in the US as of April 2019.
The attorney’s office said that the primary application of the SDRA Sepehr Navigation System is in UAVs, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles.
Charges against Abedini were first brought in December 2024, after it was discovered that the SDRA had multiple projects with the IRGC Aerospace Force since 2014, including projects for guided rockets and integrated navigation systems.
Between 2021 and 2022, “approximately 99% of SDRA’s sales of the Sepehr Navigation System, which are used in IRGC one-way attack drones, were to the IRGC’s Aerospace Force,” the attorney’s office added.
Drone attacks have resulted in the deaths of US service members. One such incident occurred in January 2024, when three US service members were killed and 40 others were wounded when a drone struck a military base located in northeast Jordan, known as the Tower 22 attack.
According to court documents, analysis of the drone that was recovered from the site of the attack revealed that the drone was an Iranian Shahed UAV and that the navigation system it used was the Sepehr Navigation System, which the SDRA manufactures.
Under US law, all assets of individuals or entities engaged in planning or perpetrating a federal crime of terrorism against the United States, citizens, or residents of the United States, can be lawfully seized.
The attorney’s office did emphasize that the details contained in the civil forfeiture complaint and criminal charging documents are currently allegations, and that under US law, defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Background to the case
On July 5, the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) exposed that Abedini possesses a doctorate in robotics and is an expert on the microscopic components used in navigation systems.
Following his doctorate, Abedini began a scientific position at the EPFL-Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne in 2015. According to the FBI, he was not only a scientist at the time, but also held an important role in Iran’s weapons program as he was able to share information from the Swiss research with Tehran.
NZZ noted that while working at the Swiss drone research laboratory, Abedini had access to Western cutting-edge technology, and, according to the FBI, ordered micro components to his university address in Lausanne and then smuggled them into Iran in his luggage.
Abedini, along with another partner, then founded a company named Illumove SA in 2018, based on the EPFL campus, and was even advised by the Vaud Economic Development Organisation.
However, the start-up actually served as a front company for the SDRA to smuggle electronic components from the US to Iran. Abedini received support from the US and Iranian Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi for this.
American security services then caught on to Abedini’s activities in 2023, following the drone attack previously mentioned.
The arrest showed that he was an essential asset to Iran: just three days after he was arrested on December 16, 2024, Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was arrested in Tehran and detained in the notorious Evin Prison. The two were seemingly traded for each other. Sala was released after 21 days, and Abedini was set free three days after she was, with the Italian Justice Ministry saying it found no evidence for the US lawsuit.
NZZ also reported on Abedini’s life in Tehran. Born into Iran’s religious elite in 1986, his father, Ayatollah Ahmad Abedini, taught at the seminary in Qom, the country’s most crucial Shi’ite university. Abedini went on to study at Sharif University in Tehran, which is tied to the Iranian regime’s security apparatus and has been on the EU’s sanctions list since 2014.