The FBI announced that two Iranian sisters and the husband of one of them, who previously worked at Google, were arrested in the United States on Thursday, February 19, 2026, on charges of stealing technical information related to the search engine and other technologies and transferring this information to Iran.
Samaneh Ghandali, 41, and her husband, Mohammad Javad Khosravi, 40, along with her sister Sarvar Ghandali, 32, a resident of San Jose, were arrested on Thursday.
All three previously worked at Google and were active in the field of mobile computer processors.
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The three are accused of transferring trade secrets related to processor security, encryption, and other technologies from Google and other technology companies to unauthorized third-party and personal locations, including work devices associated with each other’s employers, and to Iran.
According to the report, after Google’s internal security systems detected Samaneh Ghandali’s activities, her access to company resources was terminated in 2023.
In another example of such activities, Swedish media reported about one month ago on the arrest of two Iranian-born brothers on suspicion of industrial espionage for Iran’s regime in Sweden.
This case involves high-level industrial espionage targeting a sensitive company in the field of medical and healthcare technology.
The prosecutor in the case said the company produces products related to medical treatment.
According to him, the company detected suspicious behavior by the two Iranian-born brothers, who are suspects in the case, and filed a complaint with the police.
They were arrested about five months ago.
Swedish outlet TV4 News reported that the investigation into the highly confidential case is ongoing in cooperation with Sweden’s Security Service.
The two Iranian-born brothers have lived in Sweden for several decades, and the older brother has been under investigation for high-level espionage since the beginning of the current calendar year.
The other brother is also suspected of theft in the same high-profile case. He was recently released from detention on conditional bail.
In the fall of 2022, two Iranian brothers in Sweden were charged with spying for Russia.
According to reports published in Sweden, Iranian students and researchers abroad are participating in a program aimed at acquiring knowledge that could be used by the military industries of Iran’s regime.
