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Iran Turns to Criminal Gangs to Target Critics

(Washington Post) Greg Miller - Exiled Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati had been moved in and out of safe houses by London's Metropolitan Police. Yet, on March 29, he was stabbed four times outside his home in the London suburb of Wimbledon by assailants who were not from Iran, according to British investigators. Instead, Iran hired criminals in Eastern Europe who encountered few obstacles as they cleared security checks at Heathrow Airport, spent days tracking Zeraati, and then caught departing flights just hours after carrying out the ambush. U.S. and Western security officials, formerly focused on tracking operatives from Russia's GRU or Iran's Revolutionary Guard, now confront plots handed off to criminal networks deeply embedded in Western society. In recent years, Iran has outsourced lethal operations and abductions to Hells Angels biker gangs, a Russian mob network known as "Thieves in Law," a heroin distribution syndicate led by an Iranian narco-trafficker, and violent criminal groups from Scandinavia to South America.
2024-09-15 00:00:00
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