Who is being freed in the Iran prisoner swap?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

57% : The US government requires a license to export the equipment to Iran and the UAE.
53% : US prosecutors allege Kafrani negotiated with a US company to buy mass spectrometry equipment to be shipped to Iran through Canada and the UAE.
50% : Not all of them are expected to return to Iran.
49% : Shargi is an Iranian-American businessman who moved to Iran from the US with his wife in 2017.
47% : In August 2023, Shargi was also released to house arrest in anticipation of a prisoner exchange between the US and Iran.
47% : Prosecutors say the engineer and visiting scholar at the University of Michigan participated in a year-long plan to steal confidential data about an aerospace industry project, allegedly emailing the confidential data to his brother in Iran just days after starting his job.
46% : "For over a decade, Kaveh Afrasiabi pitched himself to Congress, journalists, and the American public as a neutral and objective expert on Iran," Justice Department officials said in a statement.
45% : Prosecutors allege Hassanzadeh, a permanent resident of the US, stole sensitive technical data from his employer and then sent it to his brother in Iran, who had connections to the Iranian military.
44% : He was released to house arrest in August in anticipation of a prisoner exchange agreed to by the US and Iran.
41% : Justice Department officials allege Kashani and his co-conspirators used two front companies in the United Arab Emirates to illegally obtain electronic goods and technology from multiple US companies to send to Iran.
41% : "However, all the while, Afrasiabi was actually a secret employee of the Government of Iran and the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations (IMUN) who was being paid to spread their propaganda.
38% : Justice Department officials said Ansari and co-conspirators "attempted to profit from a far-reaching, extensive scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.
36% : Kafrani was charged in 2021 with the unlawful export of laboratory equipment from the US to Iran, through Canada and the United Arab Emirates.
34% : US officials say Iran was paying Afrasiabi to spread propaganda.
33% : Five Americans who had been jailed for years in Iran are flying back home on Monday as a part of a controversial prisoner swap.
33% : He was sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2021 for violating sanctions on Iran as a part of a scheme to obtain military-sensitive parts for Iran, according to the US Justice Department.
23% : In February 2023, 44-year-old Kashani was sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiring to illegally export US goods and technology to Iran, including to the Central Bank of Iran, which the US government has designated as a supporter of terrorist organisations.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.