“Iran, Russia, as well as India and China, are hiring criminals to intimidate and kill their opponents in the West,” the Washington Post reports. The daily writes that Tehran is hiring motorcycle gangs, the Russian mafia and other criminal groups to attack opponents of the regime.
In recent years, the Iranian regime has significantly intensified attacks on domestic opponents of the Islamic Republic living abroad, but it is increasingly using hired gangsters rather than its own agents and services closely monitored abroad.
According to the Washington Institute, there have been 88 planned attacks in the past five years, most of them in Britain. According to American officials, Iran ordered attacks by at least five criminal groups.
According to the newspaper, in one of the cases foiled by the American services, Tehran, through a drug lord, hired two members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang for $350,000 to kill a man hiding in USA refugee from Iran.
Intimidation, attacks
On another occasion, members of the Russian mafia were used to intimidate prominent Iranian opposition figure and journalist Masih Alinejad. And in March 2023, Iran ordered the assassination of Pouria Zeraati, a journalist for the anti-regime and Saudi-funded Iran International, in London by a group of unidentified criminals from Eastern Europe.
The bandits managed to stab him several times, even though he and his associates were assigned British police protection following the threats.
Tehran, IranShutterstock
According to European and American officials quoted by the Washington Post, “Iran has turned to criminals out of necessity, because its agents are closely monitored abroad.”
“Using gang services carries less risk for Iranian intelligence, although the risk of failure is higher. This happened when a Pakistani citizen with ties to Iran tried to hire a hitman to assassinate Donald Trump and other politicians. As it turned out, the person to whom he paid a $5,000 advance was an FBI agent,” he writes.
Iran, Russia and India outsource repression
As the Washington Post reports, other countries have also begun to use the same strategy to reach dissidents living abroad. India organize attacks on Sikh activists in Canada and the USA, and Spain On Moscow's orders, hired criminals killed a fugitive from Russia helicopter pilot.
According to US Deputy Justice Department Secretary Matthew Olsen, Iran nevertheless “tops the list of countries that outsource repression against Western opponents of the regime.”
Olsen also recalled that opposition members are also persecuted Chinavia Chinese exiles, but Tehran has been consistently the most brutal in its actions and typically orders killings rather than intimidation or beatings.
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