MACON -- A Macon man faces decades in prison for his role in a scheme that sent fighter jet and attack helicopter parts to Iran, federal authorities said Thursday.
Small-business owner Michael Edward Todd is scheduled to appear in federal court next month to be sentenced on charges of illegal arms trading, U.S. Attorney Michael Moore said at a news conference. Officials arrested Todd last year in Atlanta.
Moore said Todd and Hamid Seifi, a Chicago businessman born in Iran but with U.S. citizenship, used intermediaries in France and the United Arab Emirates to ship spare parts to Iran that could be used to prop up that nation's aging fleet of F-5 and F-4 fighters and attack helicopters sold by the U.S. to Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
"In the wrong hands, these items can be put to use against our troops overseas, our allies or others," Moore said.
Todd pleaded guilty last month to violating the Arms Export Control Act and faces a possible 40 years in prison. Seifi, who was arrested earlier this year also in Atlanta, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Macon to conspiracy to violate the arms export law and violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He was sentenced to 56 months in prison and fines and forfeitures totaling more than $165,000.
Both laws prohibit trade in arms to Iran. Both men are in custody, authorities said.
Moore said Todd's take in the conspiracy could total much more and the total conspiracy involved millions of dollars.
The FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Commerce Department cooperated in the investigation, which dates to 2009. Three Iranians and two French citizens have been indicted as co-conspirators for acting as intermediary and shipping agents for the aircraft parts, although they have not been arrested yet.
Moore described Todd as the owner of a small warehouse business at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon known as The Parts Guys and described the parts shipped to Iran as ranging from "nuts and bolts" to more dangerous equipment, which can be purchased legally in the United States but may not be shipped to Iran.
“Keeping such advanced weaponry, which is designed to protect the men and women of our armed forces and defend our national interests, from falling into the hands of state sponsors of terror has never been more important,” Todd Hinnen, acting acting assistant attorney general for national security, said in a Justice Department statement.
According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, in 2009 Todd allegedly received two payments totaling more than $165,000 for hydraulic units, electronic contacts, bearings and other parts.
The indictment uses e-mails sent between Todd, Seifi and the other conspirators overseas, including Seifi’s brother and nephew, to outline the conspiracy. According to e-mails sent between 2008 and 2010, Todd and Seifi discussed the shipment of parts, their concerns about where the parts were going and ways to foil U.S. Customs.
Todd faces a maximum of 20 years each on two counts of violating the Arms Export Control Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Moore said the investigation continues, and additional indictments are expected.
Robert Luzzi, special agent in charge of export enforcement for the Commerce Department, said all of the people involved will be added to the department's "Entity List," prohibiting them from shipping from or into the United States.
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