[Excerpt - Nuclear, Iran, Chona connection]
Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, a Tehran-based import-export businessman, was charged under seal in Boston in 2013 with conspiring with Chinese associate Sihai Cheng (above) and two Iranian companies to procure thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran in a conspiracy dating back to 2005. Beginning in February 2009, the two allegedly conspired with others to illegally obtain hundreds of specially manufactured pressure transducers — believed critical to running Tehran’s clandestine nuclear program — from an Andover, Massachusetts, company that was not suspected of wrongdoing. Although Jamili was the suspected mastermind, Cheng pleaded guilty a month before the swap and is serving a nine-year prison sentence.