Iran is hiring Hells Angels to abduct and kill defectors in the US and Europe
The Islamic Republic of Iran hires Hells Angels and other criminal groups operating in Western countries to target their critics in exile.
A shocking report from The Washington Post claims that Tehran has recruited criminals to kidnap and kill Iranian dissidents in democratic countries including the US, Germany and the UK.
The Russian gang “Thieves in Law,” an Iranian drug trafficker and violent groups from Scandinavia to South America, have reportedly been recruited by Iran’s rulers to do their bidding.
A former Iranian soldier in hiding in Maryland, an Iranian-American journalist in Brooklyn and a dissident in London are among the exiles targeted by the Iranian regime in the West.
Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, a British citizen, was stabbed four times on March 29 on the pavement outside his home in Wimbledon, a suburb of London. The attack came after years of threats and intimidation, which forced him to move to safe houses for a time.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has hired Hells Angels and other criminal groups to target its critics in the West. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran
London police suspect that Tehran hired criminals from Eastern Europe to carry out the attack.
Detectives said the criminals followed Zeraati for days and fled on a flight a few hours after the ambush. Officials believe the attackers may have wanted Zeraati to survive the stabbing to scare him but avoid an international scandal.
Zeraati’s attackers have not yet been caught.
MI5 and the Metropolitan Police have uncovered more than 16 plots in the Islamic Republic over the past two years, The Post reports.
According to the Washington Institute, there have been 88 assassinations, kidnappings and other violent plots linked to Iran in the past five years, at least 14 of which involved criminal groups.
In the US, the Justice Department last month filed charges against a Pakistani man with ties to Iran for allegedly seeking to hire a hitman to assassinate politicians, including possibly former President Donald Trump.
Former Trump officials Mike Pompeo and John Bolton have also been targeted by Tehran in retaliation for the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, a British citizen, was stabbed four times on the pavement outside his home in Wimbledon, a suburb of London, on 29 March. He is pictured on a ‘WANTED’ poster issued by the Republic of Iran
German officials say Tehran has recruited a fugitive Hells Angels boss, Ramin Yektaparast, to organize and carry out terrorist attacks on synagogues
In Brooklyn, officers foiled a plot to assassinate American-Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad involving Thieves in Law member Khalid Mehdiyev. They showed up at her door.
Alinejad has been the target of at least three plots, one of which sought to kidnap her from New York and take her by boat to Venezuela.
“There are a lot of people in Eastern Europe and other places and it’s very easy for them to get a visa and come here to work,” she told The Post.
Tehran is also said to have outsourced killings and kidnappings to Iranian drug trafficker Naji Sharifi Zindashti, who has been described as a “Pablo Escobar-like drug trafficker.”
In Turkey, activist Habib Chaab, who lived in Sweden, was abducted in 2020 while visiting Turkey and smuggled by Zindashti agents to Iran, where he was tortured and executed in 2023.
Zindashti is also accused of negotiating a $350,000 contract with two Hells Angels members in Canada to murder an Iranian defector and his wife, who were hiding under false identities in Maryland.
The defector’s name has not been released, but he has been identified as a former IRGC officer who became an informant for the CIA.
Tehran is also said to have outsourced killings and kidnappings to Iranian drug trafficker Naji Sharifi Zindashti, who has been described as a “Pablo Escobar-like drug trafficker.”
Canadian gangster Damion Ryan, 43, of the Hells Angels, was allegedly hired to target an Iranian dissident in Maryland
The man who led the failed plot to target the defector has been named as Damion Ryan, 43, who has a lengthy criminal record in Canada. He is accused of recruiting Adam R. Pearson, 29, who was hiding in Minneapolis to avoid arrest on murder charges in Canada.
Tehran has recruited fugitive Hells Angels leader Ramin Yektaparast to organize and carry out terrorist attacks on synagogues, German officials say.
Amid the war in Gaza, Tehran has also been linked to plots against US and Israeli officials in France and Germany.
As The Post notes, other authoritarian regimes around the world have begun using Tehran’s strategy to recruit criminals in the West.
Last year, a Sikh activist was murdered in Canada and another activist in New York was targeted by thugs hired by Indian security services.
Meanwhile, Russia last year hired gangsters in Spain to kill a military pilot who had defected to Ukraine and settled in the Mediterranean.
Iran denied the claims when contacted by The Post.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has neither the intention nor the plan to carry out assassination or kidnapping operations, either in the West or in any other country,” Tehran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement.
“These fabrications are fabrications of the Zionist regime, the Albania-based terrorist sect Mujahedin-e Khalq and certain Western intelligence agencies, including that of the United States, to divert attention from the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime.”