British News Agency

Samaneh Ghandali, 41, a resident of San Jose, her sister Soroor Ghandali, 32, and Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, were arrested on Thursday and appeared before a federal district court judge the same day.

The indictment states that the defendants are Iranian nationals. Soroor was in the United States on a non-immigrant student visa. Samaneh later became a U.S. citizen, and her husband Khosravi became a lawful permanent resident of the United States. Prosecutors said Khosravi previously served in the Iranian military.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the trio faces charges of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, trade secret theft and attempted theft, and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors allege that the three defendants used their positions at leading technology firms developing mobile computer processors to obtain hundreds of confidential files, including materials related to processor security and cryptography.

After working at Google, Samaneh and Soroor joined a third company identified only as Company 3. Khosravi worked at a separate firm referred to as Company 2, which develops system-on-chip (SoC) platforms such as the Snapdragon series for smartphones and other mobile devices.

Google told CNBC that it reported the incident to law enforcement after detecting the alleged theft through routine security monitoring.

Spokesperson Jose Castaneda said, "We have strengthened our security measures to protect our confidential information and alerted law enforcement immediately after discovering this incident."

The technology giant also pointed to measures aimed at safeguarding its trade secrets, including restricting employees’ access to sensitive information, implementing two-factor authentication for work-related Google accounts, and logging file transfers to third-party platforms such as Telegram.

If convicted, each defendant faces up to 10 years in prison for each trade secret charge and up to 20 years for obstruction of justice, as well as fines of up to $250,000 per charge.