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    US officials say California men were agents of Iran

    by Melissa Etehad, Los Angeles Times Jan 13, 2019 5 minutes

    They seemed an unlikely pair of spies.

    The older man, Majid Ghorbani, worked at a Persian restaurant in Santa Ana. At 59, he wore a thick gray mustache and the weary expression of a man who had served up countless plates of rice and kebab.

    The younger man, Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, was a Long Beach native who held U.S. and Iranian citizenship. Round-faced and bespectacled, the 38-year-old answered to the Farsi nickname "Topol," or "Chubby."

    Yet even as the men sipped coffee at a Costa Mesa Starbucks, chatted outside an Irvine market, or made trips to Macy's at South Coast Plaza, they were trailed by federal agents.

    Despite the men's disarming appearance, U.S. authorities allege that they were operating in Orange County as agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran - an accusation that has alarmed

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