A federal grand jury has indicted three former engineers for stealing trade secrets from Google and other tech companies and transferring the stolen information to Iran.
The Hill reported that the charges, announced Thursday, mark the second time in recent weeks that former Google engineers have faced prosecution for funneling proprietary technology to a foreign adversary.
The defendants are 41-year-old Samaneh Ghandali, her 32-year-old sister Soroor Ghandali, and 40-year-old Mohammadjavad Khosravi. All three were charged in the Northern District of California.
According to the indictment, the Ghandali sisters allegedly transferred hundreds of files while working at Google, including company trade secrets related to processor security and cryptography, to a third-party communications platform.
The information was then copied to personal devices, Khosravi's work device at a separate company, and Soroor Ghandali's work device at yet another company where she and her sister later worked.
The scheme didn't stop at digital theft. After Google flagged Samaneh Ghandali's activity and restricted her access in August 2023, she signed an affidavit stating she had not shared confidential information outside the company. She and Khosravi then allegedly began researching how to delete communications and data.
They also allegedly resorted to manually photographing computer screens displaying trade secrets from Google and Khosravi's employer. In December 2023, the pair traveled to Iran, where they accessed the photographs and other confidential information from Khosravi's employer.
The affidavit. The deletions. The photographs. The flight to Tehran. Each step was not a lapse in judgment. It was a calculated escalation.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani issued a statement Thursday that left little room for ambiguity about how federal law enforcement views the case:
"The alleged actions outlined in this indictment reflect a calculated betrayal of trust by individuals accused of stealing trade secrets from the very tech companies that employed them."
Virmani also addressed the lengths the defendants allegedly went to in order to cover their tracks:
"According to the allegations, the method in which confidential data was transferred by the defendants involved deliberate steps to evade detection and conceal their identities."
And he framed the stakes in terms that go well beyond corporate espionage:
"Protecting Silicon Valley innovation and defending the groundbreaking technologies that drive our economy and national security is a top priority for the FBI."
That last line is worth sitting with. Processor security and cryptography are not consumer gadget features. They are the backbone of defense systems, financial infrastructure, and secure communications. Sending that knowledge to Iran is not a white-collar footnote. It is a national security event.
This indictment lands just weeks after a separate case in which an ex-Google engineer was convicted in late January of stealing AI-related trade secrets from the tech giant for Chinese companies. Two cases. Two foreign adversaries. One company hemorrhaging its most sensitive intellectual property.
The pattern raises questions that Google and the broader tech industry cannot wave away with updated employee handbooks. Silicon Valley has spent years cultivating an ethos of openness, global collaboration, and borderless talent acquisition. That ethos has real benefits. It also creates real vulnerabilities, the kind that hostile foreign governments are clearly exploiting.
For decades, the debate about tech-sector espionage has been treated as a niche concern, something for counterintelligence briefings rather than front-page news. That era is over.
When engineers at America's most prominent technology firms can allegedly walk out the door with hundreds of files on cryptography and processor security, photograph screens when digital access gets cut off, and then board a plane to Iran, the problem is not abstract. It is structural.
None of this surprises anyone who has taken the threat from Iran and China seriously. Conservatives have argued for years that the United States treats intellectual property theft with a leniency that no serious nation can afford.
The technology that powers American economic and military dominance does not regenerate once it's been handed to an adversary. It's gone.
The instinct in Washington has too often been to treat these cases as isolated incidents involving rogue individuals. But when the same company produces two espionage prosecutions involving two different hostile nations in the span of weeks, "isolated" stops being a credible description.
The indictment is a start. Prosecution sends a signal. But the deeper question is whether American institutions, both governmental and corporate, are willing to match the seriousness of the threat with the seriousness of the response.
Three engineers. Hundreds of stolen files. A signed affidavit that was allegedly a lie. And a flight to Iran with the photographs to prove it.
