A federal grand jury indicted three Silicon Valley engineers on charges of stealing trade secrets from Google and other technology companies and transferring sensitive data to Iran.
This indictment was announced on October 19, 2023. The accused are Samaneh Ghandali, 41, Soroor Ghandali, 32, and Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, all residents of San Jose. They were arrested on the same day and appeared in federal district court.
The three defendants are Iranian nationals. Soroor Ghandali was in the U.S. on a nonimmigrant student visa, while Samaneh became a U.S. citizen. Khosravi, her husband, is a legal permanent resident and previously served in the Iranian army.
Prosecutors allege that the trio exploited their positions at leading technology firms to obtain hundreds of confidential files, including those related to processor security and cryptography.
According to the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of California, Samaneh and Soroor worked at Google before joining a third unnamed company.
Khosravi worked at another firm, referred to as Company 2, which develops system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, including the Snapdragon series found in many smartphones. Google became aware of the alleged theft through routine security monitoring and immediately alerted law enforcement after detecting suspicious activity.
Prosecutors claim that the defendants took deliberate steps to evade detection while transferring the stolen files. They allegedly used a third-party communications platform to send files to channels named after themselves before copying the information to personal devices and sending it to Iran.
After Google's security systems flagged Samaneh's activity and revoked her access in August 2023, she signed an affidavit falsely claiming she had not shared confidential information. During this time, she and Khosravi reportedly searched for methods to delete their communications.
The indictment states that the Snapdragon SoC trade secrets have independent economic value because they are not widely known and cannot be easily obtained from competitors.
If convicted, each defendant faces up to 10 years in prison for each trade secret charge and up to 20 years for obstruction of justice, along with fines of up to $250,000 per count. The case highlights the serious consequences of trade secret theft in the technology sector.
