By Pishtaz | 2024-09-23

The Iranian regime's secret service has been accused of recruiting criminal gangs and drug lords to target dissidents and journalists outside the country and sow fear among its opponents, media reports said.

A Paris court detained and charged a couple in May in connection with Iranian plots to kill Jews in Germany and France, AFP reported.

The case signals a revival in Iranian state-sponsored terrorism in Europe, per a report by France's General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI).

"Since 2015, the Iranian (secret) services have resumed a targeted killing policy," it said, adding that "the threat has worsened again in the context of the Israel-Hamas war."

One of the accused is charged with being the main France-based operative for an Iran-sponsored terrorist cell that planned acts of violence in France and Germany.

A former fellow inmate is suspected of connecting him with the cell's coordinator, a major drug trafficker from the Lyon area who likely visited Iran in May, according to the DGSI.

In the United States, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran is on trial for plotting to kill a US official. He allegedly sought to hire a hitman, prosecutors said September 11.

FBI director Christopher Wray has said the purported murder-for-hire plot was "straight out of the Iranian playbook."

The US Treasury on September 18 sanctioned four Iranian individuals in connection with the Iranian regime's lethal operations overseas.

Outsourcing assassinations

In an extensive report published September 12 that cites numerous such plots, the Washington Post notes that "Iran has outsourced lethal operations and abductions" to numerous criminal entities.

The report shows how Iran has cultivated and exploited connections to criminal networks that are behind a recent wave of violent plots secretly orchestrated by elite units in the IRGC and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence.

Despite taking stringent security measures, the United Kingdom earlier this year failed to protect Iran International journalist Pouria Zeraati from an assassination plot.

On March 29, Zeraati was stabbed in a London suburb by assailants who were not from Iran and had no discernible connection to its security services, according to British investigators. He survived.

Iran reportedly hired criminals in Eastern Europe, who entered the country, tracked down Zeraati and caught departing flights just hours later.

The regime's alleged reliance on criminals rather than covert operatives points to an alarming evolution in tactics, the newspaper said.

This has compounded the difficulty of protecting those who have sought refuge in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, senior security officials said.