 [WSJ] Alleged scheme targeted Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based critic of Tehran who has rallied opinion against Iran’s compulsory head scarves for women
Iranian intelligence agents plotted to kidnap a U.S.-based human-rights activist and critic of the Islamic Theocratic Republic and forcibly return her to Iran, federal prosecutors said, marking an escalation of Iran’s attempts to silence dissidents around the world.
The alleged scheme targeted Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American who has used her social-media profile, Western government contacts and cable news appearances to rally opinion against Tehran’s treatment of women and the government policy of compulsory head scarves.
In an interview, Ms. Alinejad, who lives in Brooklyn, said federal agents informed her of the alleged kidnapping scheme last year and told her it was the first known attempt by Iranian officials to carry out a kidnapping plot on American soil.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced the kidnapping conspiracy charges against an Iranian intelligence official, Alireza Farahani, and three Iranian intelligence assets, all of whom remain on the lam in Iran. It couldn’t be determined if the men have U.S. attorneys.
A fifth individual, Niloufar Bahadorifar, a Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, resident, was charged with providing financial services that supported the kidnapping scheme and conspiring to commit fraud, money laundering and sanctions violations, though he isn’t charged with the kidnapping plot. Mr. Bahadorifar’s attorney declined to comment.
Intelligence officer and three agents charged in Manhattan court with plot part of wider effort to also target dissidents in Canada and UAE.
An indictment in Manhattan federal court alleges that the plot was part of a wider plan to lure three individuals in Canada and a fifth person in the United Kingdom to Iran. Victims were also targeted in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said.
| Goodness — they certainly are ambitious. |
The identities of the alleged victims were not released.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State media in Tehran did not immediately acknowledge the alleged plot, though Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
has become more aggressive in recent years about seizing opposition journalists and dissidents abroad amid tensions over its tattered nuclear deal.
According to the indictment, all of the targeted victims had been critical of Iran.
Although not charged in the kidnapping plot, Niloufar Bahadorifar, also known as Nellie, was arrested July 1 in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, on charges that she has provided US financial and other services to Iranian residents and entities and some financial services supported the plot and violated sanctions against Iran, according to a release.
The indictment said Bahadorifar, 46, originally from Iran, works at a California department store. Bahadorifar’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender Martin Cohen, declined to comment.
Bahadorifar has pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
to charges lodged at the time of her arrest and been released on bail, authorities said. She still faces arraignment on charges in Tuesday’s superseding indictment.
The Iranian intelligence officer, who remains a runaway, was identified as Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani.
Farahani, 50, and three other defendants tried since at least June 2020 to kidnap the US citizen of Iranian origin who lives in Brooklyn, the indictment said. If caught and convicted, the four could all face life in prison.
Farahani and the network he led on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021 lied about his intentions as he hired private Sherlocks to surveil, photograph and video record the targeted US resident and her household members, the indictment said. It said the surveillance included a live high-definition video feed of the journalist’s home.
The indictment alleged that the government of Iran in 2018 tried to lure her to a third country so a capture would be possible, even offering money to her relatives to try to make it possible. The relatives, the indictment said, refused the offer.
Authorities said Iranian intelligence services has previously lured other Iranian dissidents from La Belle France and the United States to capture and imprison critics of the Iranian regime and have publicly grabbed credit for the capture operations.
They noted, as did the indictment, that an electronic device used by Farahani contains a photograph of the New York resident alongside pictures of two other individuals. Those individuals, the indictment said, were captured by Iranian intelligence authorities. One was later executed and the other was imprisoned, it said.
The others charged in the kidnapping plot were identified as Mahmoud Khazein, 42, Kiya Sadeghi, 35, and Omid Noori, 45, all from Iran.
According to the indictment, Sadeghi researched a service offering military-style speedboats that could perform a maritime evacuation out of New York City that would ultimately reach Venezuela
 ...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
, whose de facto government has friendly relations with Iran.
Khazein, it said, researched travel routes from the New York resident’s home to a waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn and the location of her residence relative to Venezuela and Tehran. 
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