Last week the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut unsealed a criminal complaint against Mozaffar Khazaee, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen charged with attempting to transport sensitive technical data related to the U.S. Military’s Fifth Generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. According to the affidavit filed in support of the complaint, on November 26, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents from an Outbound Enforcement Team inspected a shipment destined for Iran which had been labeled “House Hold Goods” on the Shipper’s Export Declaration. Among the 44 boxes contained in the shipment, were two crates containing thousands of pages of technical documents including technical specifications, diagrams, and blueprints for the F-35 engine program. Apparently Khazaee, who became a naturalized citizen in 1991, had been laid off from his job at defense contractor Pratt &Whitney in August and for unspecified reasons decided to take the F-35 material out the door with him. He was arrested on January 9 at Newark airport just before boarding a Frankfurt-bound flight that would have eventually taken him to Tehran.

While the initial charge filed against Khazaee is a violation of 18 USC 2314, which prohibits the interstate transportation of stolen property, footnote 1 of the affidavit indicates that it’s likely that he’ll face a host of additional charges for violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA). At the very least it seems clear that Khazaee actions constitute a violation of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR) 31 CFR § 560.203, which prohibits transactions designed to evade sanctions and attempts to violate any provision of the ITSR, in the case the § 560.204 prohibition on exportation of goods, technology, or services to Iran. It should also not be difficult for prosecutors to prove that Khazaee’s actions constitute a “willful” violation as required for criminal charges by each statute – the documents recovered by CBP were reportedly labeled with “Export-Controlled” and “ITAR-controlled” warnings. Furthermore, at the conclusion of his employment Khazaee was required to sign a separation agreement which required him to surrender all materials.

Predictably, though not without good reason, questions were raised whether this is the result of a calculated attempt by Iranian intelligence to steal highly sensitive U.S. military information. If so, Iran might want to reassess how it handles it sources because Khazaee’s lack of tradecraft was something to behold. Simply labeling his shipment’s final destination as Iran would be seen as a red flag by CBP and vastly increase the odds of, if not guarantee additional screening. He also used his own name on the shipping documents and used personal checks to pay the freight forwarder. Travel documents did show however, that Khazaee had traveled to Iran five (5) times in the past seven (7) years.

From the information currently available it seems more likely that a freshly laid-off Khazaee thought that the documents could be of value and decided on his own to try and get them to Iran to sell at a later datet. If, however, it surfaces that Khazaee did indeed have ties to Iranian intelligence, the amateurish nature of the plot suggests Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) might need to train its handlers better.

Of far more concern is the fact that a terminated employee was able to simply walk out the door of a U.S. defense contractor with thousands of documents containing some of the United States’ most sensitive defensive information. Apparently, even in the age of Edward Snowden, some still require additional lessons in the importance of data security. One hopes that coverage going forward will focus as much on Pratt & Whitney failings as on Mr. Khazaee’s ties to Iran.