Three Florida residents have been charged with allegedly breaking Iran sanction rules after they exported scientific equipment to the country and received large sums of money from international wire transfers.

Mohammad Faghihi, 52, his wife Farzeneh Modarresi, 53, and his sister Faezeh Faghihi, 50, were the perpetrators in the scheme. The three operated a company called Express Gene under which the illegal trades took place.

Between 2013 and 2020 Faghihi was an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatric and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami (UM), Miller School of Medicine. According to the DOJ, during his time with the University, Faghihi served as the principal investigator on several National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants that were awarded in February 2013, December 2016, and June 2017. According to prosecutors, however, Faghihi did not disclose that he was receiving large sums of money via wire transfers as required by both UM and the NIH’s financial conflict of interest reporting system.

According to the criminal complaint affidavit, between October 2016 and November 2020, under the operation of Express Gene, money was received from overseas accounts held in Malaysia, China, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors allege that Express Gene collected a total of 3.5 million dollars from the wire transfers. Some of that money was used to purchase genetic sequencing equipment from manufacturers in the US. Rules stipulating the sanctions on Iran were then violated when the equipment was shipped to Iran without a license to export the machines from the Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control.

After arriving from a trip to Iran in late February, Faghihi was questioned and inspected by Customs and Border Protection (CPB) officers. During the inspection, Faghihi allegedly made false statements. Among those false statements was that Faghihi did not practice his profession in Iran and that he did not conduct any research pertaining to his profession during his time in Iran.

It was later found that these statements were a lie when authorities identified that Faghihi was in fact listed as a director of a laboratory located in the Shiraz University of Medical Science. The laboratory bore his name, Dr. Faghihi’s Medical Genetics Center.

In addition to the false statements, officers also found 17 vials that had “unknown biological substances” in them. The vials were concealed in Faghihi’s luggage and were covered with ice packs and hidden underneath food items including bread.

All three individuals face charges of conspiring to commit an offense against the United States as well as conspiring to commit money laundering. Faghihi and his wife also face other charges including unlawful export of goods to Iran and smuggling goods out of the United States.

The trio made their first court appearance Tuesday in Miami Federal Court.