A federal grand jury in the Northern District of California has returned a multi-count indictment charging three Silicon Valley engineers with conspiring to steal trade secrets from leading U.S. technology firms, including Google, and transmitting sensitive proprietary data to locations outside the United States, among them Iran.
The defendants — Samaneh Ghandali, 41; her sister Soroor Ghandali, 32; and Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40 — were arrested in San Jose, California on Feb. 19, 2026, and made their initial appearance in federal court the same day. All three are residents of San Jose and are named in the indictment on charges that include conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, theft and attempted theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice.
Federal prosecutors allege the trio used their employment positions at major technology companies to obtain hundreds of confidential files. Many of these files contained proprietary information related to processor security and cryptography, technology used in advanced chip designs and mobile systems on chips (SoC) critical to modern smartphones and computing devices.
According to the indictment, both Samaneh and Soroor Ghandali previously worked at Google in engineering roles where they accessed and transferred sensitive internal files, including trade secrets, to unauthorized third-party communication channels. Some of this material was later copied to personal devices, to devices used by Khosravi at his employer, and ultimately prosecutors allege transmitted to Iran.
Authorities say Google’s internal security systems first identified unusual activity by Samaneh Ghandali in August 2023, which led to her access being revoked and referred to federal investigators. After being flagged by Google’s monitoring tools, prosecutors contend that the defendants undertook efforts to hide their actions, including submitting false sworn affidavits denying any improper transfer of confidential files, deleting records and data, and manually photographing computer screens showing sensitive material to evade digital detection.
Prosecutors also reported that on the night before Samaneh and Khosravi travelled to Iran in December 2023, Samaneh allegedly photographed approximately two dozen images of her husband’s work computer screen containing proprietary information from another technology employer. Once in Iran, devices linked to Samaneh were reportedly used to access those photographs and other data.
All three defendants are identified as Iranian nationals. Samaneh Ghandali later became a U.S. citizen, Soroor Ghandali was in the United States on a nonimmigrant student visa, and Khosravi, her husband, was a U.S. lawful permanent resident. Prosecutors noted that Khosravi previously served in the Iranian army, a point of interest in the broader investigation.
If convicted on all counts, each defendant faces a maximum prison sentence of up to 10 years per trade secret theft charge and up to 20 years for obstruction of justice, along with potential fines of up to $250,000 per count
