An Iranian man accused of being the boss of a network that targets dissidents has been accused of hiring two Canadians, including a member of the Hells Angels, to kill two Iranian refugees living in Maryland, according to charges unsealed Monday.
The man, Naji Sharifi Zindashti, 49, is accused of being a drug trafficker and murder in Iran. In December, a federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted him for orchestrating a plot to kill an unidentified Iranian defector and another person in late 2020 and early 2021 by using an encrypted messaging app to recruit assassins .
Mr. Zindashti connected with Damion Ryan, 43, who, in turn, listed Adam R. Pearson, 29, according to court documents. Prosecutors identified Mr. Pearson as a “full member of the outlawed Hells Angels Motorcycle Club” who was living illegally in Minnesota.
Both men are serving time in Canadian prisons on unrelated charges. In a chilling exchange described in one of the indictments, Mr Pearson signaled his intention to shoot one of his targets in the head to send a message on behalf of his Iranian handler.
“We need to erase his head from his torso,” Pearson said in a communication intercepted on the encrypted platform Sky ECC.
For unclear reasons, the hits were never carried out.
The men – who claimed to have organized a team of four people, including a driver – accepted a payment of $350,000 in January 2021. Mr. Zindashti, identified by the Treasury Department as a drug trafficker working at the behest of the Department of Iranian intelligence and security sent them photographs of the targets, a man and a woman, along with maps.
He appears to have paid them only $20,000 in travel expenses, prosecutors said.
The charges stem from a years-long investigation by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Law enforcement said the investigation was continuing and had not ruled out the possibility that others could be charged.
“To those in Iran planning assassinations on American soil and the criminal actors who work with them, let today’s indictments send a clear message: the Department of Justice will prosecute you for as long as it takes,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Lo’s G. Olsen said the department’s national security division in a statement.
This is not the first time a member of the Hells Angels has been linked to Iran. In 2023, a court in Düsseldorf, Germany, convicted a man of attempting to burn down a synagogue after a gang member who had worked with Tehran officials asked him to do so, according to the German prosecutor’s office.
The unsealing of the indictment comes at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Iran, a day after the deaths of three American service members in an attack by an Iranian-backed militia on a base in Jordan. President Biden has promised to respond.
The Justice Department has warned that several foreign powers, including Iran, Russia and China, have become increasingly brazen in their attacks against dissidents and refugees living in the United States.
In July, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged three men in a plot hatched in Iran to assassinate Masih Alinejad, an American human rights activist who has criticized the country’s repression of women.
In November, a federal grand jury in New York indicted an Indian man for plotting to kill a New York-based Sikh dissident. According to the charges, prosecutors said Nikhil Gupta, 52, collaborated with an unidentified Indian government official to recruit a hitman. Mr. Gupta was captured in Prague and Czech authorities are extraditing him to the United States.
The three defendants accused of working for Iran are all charged with conspiracy to commit two contract killings. Mr. Pearson is also charged with possession of a firearm by a fugitive and unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien in the United States.
After the indictment was made public, the Treasury Department and British officials announced it impose sanctions against Zindashti and associates who have “carried out numerous acts of transnational repression including murders and kidnappings”.
Treasury officials said Zindashti was behind the 2020 kidnapping of a dissident who was smuggled back into Iran, given a summary trial and executed. They also accused Zindashti and his men of assassinating a former Iranian cybersecurity official in 2019 who had denounced the country’s leadership. They also said Zindashti was responsible for the 2017 killing of Saeed Karimian, the owner of Gem TV, a network of television channels critical of Tehran.
It was not immediately clear who represents Mr Ryan or Mr Pearson in the case.
Iran’s representative to the United Nations did not immediately return a request for comment.