Ypsilanti engineer accused of sending confidential information to Iran

DETROIT – According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, millions of dollars of aerospace trade secrets were sent from Metro Detroit to Iran.

It is a national security case involving Ypsilanti resident Amin Hasanzadeh.

Hasanzadeh was in court Wednesday.

The FBI claims Hasanzadeh lied about being an Iranian military veteran in order to immigrate into the United States. Hasanzadeh’s brother is linked to Iran’s nuclear weapons industry, the FBI said.

According to the court documents, Hasanzadeh is a hardware engineer and a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan. In 2015, Hasanzadeh was hired at a Metro Detroit company that serves defense, aerospace and auto industries. Within six days of accepting the job and signing a nondisclosure agreement, court documents allege Hasanzadeh emailed millions of dollars worth of the company’s confidential technology research to his brother in Iran and to his wife, who was getting her PhD at the University of Michigan.

The FBI claims to have found thousands of the company’s documents stored on Michigan’s cloud storage.

He is expected to return to court Friday.


About the Authors:

Local 4 Defender Shawn Ley is an Emmy award-winning journalist who has been with Local 4 News for more than a decade.

Dane is a producer and media enthusiast. He previously worked freelance video production and writing jobs in Michigan, Georgia and Massachusetts. Dane graduated from the Specs Howard School of Media Arts.