Iran hired Hells Angels biker to assassinate dissident, US says
Iran has been accused of hiring a Hells Angels biker to assassinate a dissident in the United States.
Naji Sharifi Zindashti, who is based in Iran, conspired with two Canadian men to murder an unidentified Iranian defector and another person in Maryland in late 2020 and early 2021, the Department of Justice said.
The intended victims of the plot were not identified but prosecutors described them as having fled to the US together after one of them had defected from Iran.
Mr Zindashti connected with Damion Ryan, 43, who subsequently enlisted Adam R Pearson, 29, according to court documents.
The US Treasury Department said Mr Zindashti headed a network responsible for a string of assassinations of Iranian dissidents on foreign soil, which operates “at the behest of Iran’s ministry of intelligence and security”.
Pearson and Ryan are currently in Canadian prisons on unrelated charges. Mr Zindashti, 49, is also accused by US officials of being a drugs smuggler.
Prosecutors identified Pearson as a “full-patch member of the outlaw Hells Angels Motorcycle Club” who was living illegally in Minnesota prior to his arrest. They said Mr Zindashti used an encrypted messaging app to recruit the would-be killers.
For reasons that are unclear, the planned murders were never actually attempted.
According to prosecutors, Ryan wrote that carrying out a killing in the US would be challenging but he “might have someone to do it” and recommended “two guys go with proper equipment”.
Pearson pledged to “make [an] example” of one of the victims by blowing his head off his body, according to court documents.
Prosecutors allege Mr Zindashti agreed to pay $350,000 plus $20,000 to cover expenses for the murders, to which Ryan responded: “We have a four-man team ready.”
Prosecutors said Mr Zindashti sent the two Canadians photographs of the targets, a man and a woman, along with maps.
All three men are charged with one count of conspiracy to use interstate commerce in the commission of murder for hire.
Pearson is also charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a fugitive from justice and one count of possession of a firearm by a non-US citizen unlawfully in the US.
The trio were indicted by a grand jury in Minnesota in December following an investigation by the FBI, the US Justice Department and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“To those in Iran who plot murders on US soil and the criminal actors who work with them, let [the] charges send a clear message: The Department of Justice will pursue you as long as it takes,” said assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen.
Mr Zindashti’s network has reportedly been responsible for murders in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Turkey.
“Zindashti’s network has carried out numerous acts of transnational repression, including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions, in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics,” the Treasury Department said.
“The network has also plotted operations in the United States.”
