An Iranian drug dealer working on behalf of Iran’s security services attempted to coordinate the assassination of a defector in Maryland, according to U.S. officials.
“Thanks to the skilled work of federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents, this murder-for-hire conspiracy was disrupted and the defendants will face justice,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said in a Monday statement.
Justice Department officials outlined the plot in an indictment that identified Naji Sharifi-Zindashti as the Iran-based coordinator of the operation, which also involved an alleged Canadian co-conspirator who is “a full patch member of the outlaw Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club.” They unveiled the indictment in tandem with the publication of economic sanctions billed as a crackdown on the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security network that coordinates the overseas attacks.
“The Iranian regime’s continued efforts to target dissidents and activists demonstrate the regime’s deep insecurity and attempt to expand Iran’s domestic repression internationally,” Treasury Department undersecretary Brian Nelson said Monday. “The United States, alongside our international allies and partners, including the United Kingdom, will continue to combat the Iranian regime’s transnational repression and will utilize all available tools to stop this threat, especially on U.S. soil.”
The United Kingdom added its weight to the crackdown, which comes in the wake of British officials disrupting a separate plot to assassinate employees of Iran International, a U.K.-based media outlet that is critical of the regime in Tehran.
“The Iranian regime and the criminal gangs who operate on its behalf pose an unacceptable threat to the UK’s security,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Monday. “Today’s package exposes the roles of the Iranian officials and gangs involved in activity aimed to undermine, silence and disrupt the democratic freedoms we value in the UK. The UK and US have sent a clear message — we will not tolerate this threat.”
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U.S. officials identified Sharif-Zindashti as complicit in two other operations, dating to 2017 and 2019, that resulted in three murders of Iranian dissidents in Turkey.
“Since the start of 2022, the UK has responded to at least 15 credible threats and plots to kill British or UK-based individuals by the Iranian regime,” Cameron’s team said. “The regime has publicly called for the killing of these individuals and in some cases detained and harassed the individual’s families in Iran.”
