In response to heightened vigilance by Western security services, the Iranian government has increasingly turned to criminal groups to carry out assassinations and violent attacks against exiled dissidents. This shift follows a surge in Iran’s foreign espionage operations, particularly after the 2022 protests sparked by the death of a young woman in the custody of the morality police. As Western nations clamp down on Iranian intelligence activities, Tehran is reportedly enlisting criminal syndicates to execute these operations.
Among the most prominent groups linked to these plots is the Hells Angels, one of at least five criminal organizations Iran is said to have recruited. According to senior officials from over a dozen countries, as well as court documents and investigative reports obtained by The Washington Post, Iran’s use of criminal networks has expanded dramatically in recent years.
One example involves Ramin Yektaparast, a member of the German chapter of the Hells Angels, who was hired by Iranian operatives to bomb a synagogue in Essen, Germany. In another case, Naji Sharifi Zindashti, a notorious heroin trafficking kingpin based in Tehran, brokered a $350,000 deal with two Hells Angels members in Canada. Their mission was to assassinate an Iranian defector living in Maryland.
Evidence gathered from encrypted messages, which were part of an indictment, revealed the group’s plans to carry out the killing in an exceptionally brutal manner. One of the conspirators promised to “make sure I hit this guy in the head with AT LEAST half the clip,” while another insisted, “We gotta erase his head from his torso.” This plot, which was devised in March 2021, was foiled in 2022 after Western security agencies cracked the encrypted messaging app used by the group.
At the center of these operations is Zindashti, who has evolved from a drug lord operating out of Istanbul to a key figure orchestrating assassinations, abductions, and outsourced attacks for the Iranian regime. His role in these activities offers Tehran plausible deniability, as the government can distance itself from the criminal organizations executing these plots. Despite growing evidence, Iran has consistently denied any involvement in such activities.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intent nor the plan to engage in assassination or abduction operations, whether in the West or any other country,” Iran’s UN mission stated in response to the allegations.
A report from the Washington Institute outlined 88 assassination attempts, abductions, and violent plots linked to Iran in the past five years — more than in the previous four decades combined since the 1979 revolution. Of these, 14 involved criminal groups. The frequency of such plots peaked in 2022, coinciding with widespread protests and unrest in Iran.