US, UK sanction Iranian 'assassination network'

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) – The US and UK blacklisted Monday what the Biden administration called a "transnational assassinations network" tasked with killing Iranian dissidents abroad.

The US Treasury Department said the network is led by Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti, a narcotics trafficker, and operates at the order of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The group is accused of working in multiple countries, including the US, to silence Tehran's critics.

“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,” Brian Nelson, the Treasury's top official for financial intelligence, said in a statement.

“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 US soil," he added.

In addition to Zindashti, some other individuals associated with the network were also sanctioned, the Treasury said.

The network is accused of carrying out several plots, including one in 2021 in which it sought to recruit a Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Group member to kill a dissident who fled Iran. Damion Patrick John Ryan, the motorcycle gang member, and a Hell's Angels affiliate, are currently imprisoned abroad on unrelated charges.

Both are being sanctioned as part of Monday's actions.

Three other men -- Ali Esfanjani, Abdulvahap Kocak, and Muhammad Reza Naserzadeh -- are being sanctioned for their alleged involvement in a 2019 plot to assassinate Mas’ud Vardanjani in Istanbul. Ali Kocak is being blacklisted for surveillance ahead of a double murder in Istanbul in 2017.