Iranian Intelligence Uses International Crime Organizations to Eliminate Opposition Activists and for Narco-Terrorist Activity

Revealed here: The secret of Iran’s intelligence “success” is its use of international crime organizations to kidnap exiled political activists and journalists around the world and transfer them to Iran for execution. And what is the role of the female Sununuh [“swallow bird”] agents?

A series of articles published recently in the Turkish, British, and American media indicate that Iranian intelligence is making effective use of major international crime organizations and drug cartels in several countries to advance its goals, notably capturing dissidents in the diaspora. These organizations have affiliates in other countries, for example Romania, a country where a senior Iranian judge was recently assassinated during a mysterious trip.

British and American news outlets reported that Turkish police recently arrested at least 13 members of an international crime organization on charges of collaborating with Iran’s intelligence services.

One such organization has become the long arm of Iranian intelligence. It is run by Naji Sharifi Zindashti, born in Oroumieh, Iran, and the son of a Peshmerga fighter. Zindashti was detained in Evin prison after a conviction for drug trafficking at the age of 20. He escaped from prison and lived in Turkey for many years. Zindashti had contacts with Turkish politicians in President Erdogan’s AKP party, but he made sure to donate financially to the organization headed by Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Turkish opposition in exile who resides in the United States. Zindashti was reportedly a secret witness in the Ergenekon trial³ and detained on charges of attempting to topple Turkish government.⁴ He was mysteriously released from prison in 2010 from prison after his arrest in 2007 in Turkey for possession of 75 kg of heroin.⁵

Turkey’s official news agency, Anadolu, recently confirmed that Iran’s intelligence ministry used Zindashti’s organization to assassinate and kidnap Iranian dissidents on Turkish soil. Turkey suspects that Zindashti’s envoys have acted uninterrupted against Iranian exiles since at least 2015.

A “Honeytrap?” The Recent Kidnapping by an Iranian “Swallow”

A video broadcast on Sky News on December 16, 2020, portrayed the kidnapping of Habib Farajula Kaab, known as Habib Assyud in Turkey (in October 2020), in what the network called a “honeytrap.”⁶ Assyud was vice president of the Executive Committee of the Arab Struggle Front for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), a party working for the rights of Iran’s Arab minority. The Turkish Ministry of Justice issued a “Red Notice” from Interpol to arrest a woman Sabreen Saeedi, (apparently a “Swallow” agent) involved in the Assyud abduction of Habib Assyud. The video footage showed Saeedi luring Assyud to fly from Sweden to Turkey and meeting him in a petrol station 80 km from Istanbul. He was then abducted by Naji Sharifi Zindashti’s gang and driven 1,600 km to Iran to stand trial. 

Another Sununuh agent, Sherine Najaf, is suspected of luring the dissident journalist, Ruhollah Zam, from Belgium to Iraq, where he was kidnapped. Ram was executed by hanging on December 12, 2020.

The Kidnapping Ringleader, Naji Sharifi Zindashti

In 2018, Zindashti and members of his gang were charged in Turkey with drug trafficking, the murder of another Iranian ex-pat named Saeed Karimian, the founder and director of JAM TV channels, and drug-related killings. They were soon released, apparently as a result of a combination of lawbreaking, bribery, lack of evidence, and applied political pressure from sources close to President Erdogan.

Exiled Iranian journalists working for Iran International television station in London reported that they had received indications that Zindashti was also involved in the assassination of a senior Iranian judge, Gholamreza Mansouri, at a hotel in Romania’s capital in June 2020. According to the station, Zindashti passed an order from Iran to his cousin, Hossein Karimi Rickabadi, a well-known international criminal in Romania, to eliminate the judge who held considerable information about the corruption of senior Iranian regime figures. Mansouri’s death was ruled a suicide after jumping from the fifth floor of his Bucharest hotel, but his family raised many questions¹⁰ about the cause of death and why Iranian diplomats instructed him to go from Germany to Romania after receiving medical treatment in a German hospital. They said that his mysterious transfer to Romania was done to eliminate him there since his liquidation on German soil could have taken a high diplomatic, political, and economic toll on the Iranian regime.

Naji Sharifi Zindashti was also wanted in Greece in 2014 after the discovery of the largest shipment of heroin in European history.¹² After the two-ton shipment was uncovered on a freighter, a series of mysterious murders also took place in various countries. In September 2014, Zindashti’s 19-year-old daughter, Arzu Sherifi Zindashti, was shot dead in Istanbul’s Büyükçekmece district on her way to Istanbul University.¹³ His partners in the drug deal found themselves on the receiving end of the mob boss’ rage. Media outlets in Turkey, Greece, and other countries pointed the finger at Zindashti, who was behind at least ten murders.¹⁴

After 13 years under surveillance in Turkey for killing his opponents, Zindashti probably realized that returning to Iran would be a smarter act, and if he cooperated with Iranian intelligence, he could also run his organization in Turkey from Iran, thus securing his future.

Zindashti’s Murder and Kidnapping Spree

Many high-profile murders and abductions of Iranian exiles are attributed to Zindashti’s organization:

• On May 30, 2017, Saeed Karimian and his Kuwaiti partner, Mohammed Mutayeb Salihi, were killed in an attack on a private vehicle in Istanbul’s Sharir district. The attackers were two men, reported by the Turkish police to included Zindashti’s driver and bodyguard. Turkey said that the assassin fled (presumably to Iran).
• On November 14, 2019, Masoud Mulvey, founder of Telegram Black Box, which published information about Iranian intelligence, was murdered on a major street in Istanbul. According to Turkish security officials, the gunman was a gardener at Zindashti’s villa in Istanbul. The perpetrator was apparently arrested.
• On October 23, 2020, Asyoud was abducted from Turkey by a squad from the Zindashti gang and transferred to Iran. The crew, numbering 13 people, was recently arrested by Turkish security forces.
• In this context, in January 2019, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok revealed that his government’s secret service “had strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin, in Almere in 2015 and The Hague in 2017.” He defined the Iranian actions as “blatantly damaging to Dutch sovereignty and completely unacceptable.” The victims were Ahmad Molla Nissi, a senior ASMLA official murdered in November 2017 at the doorstep of his home in The Hague, and Ali Motamed, who was murdered near his home in Almere in December 2015.¹⁵ Hizbullah maintains ties with Dutch criminal elements in various fields, including drug trafficking.
• In recent years, European intelligence services have uncovered – with the assistance of Israeli intelligence – several other attempts by Iran to target Iranian opposition activists on European soil.
• In 2018, Albania expelled Iran’s ambassador and another diplomat, who it claimed were involved in efforts to target opposition figures in the country. Then, in January 2020, Albania expelled another two Iranian diplomats for “endangering Albania’s national security. The two were identified as an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and a member of the Iranian Intelligence Agency MOIS. They were reported to be associates of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.¹⁶
• In October 2018, Danish and Swiss officials uncovered an Iranian agent intent on assassinated a ASMLA activist in Copenhagen.¹⁷

Iran’s intelligence services, including the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards (especially the Al-Qods force operating outside Iran), use various “covers” for their intelligence and terrorism activities. Iranian embassies, consulates, and delegations traveling abroad serve as cover for terrorist activities and intelligence gathering, while Iran uses Iran Air aircraft for similar purposes. Iranian intelligence officials also turn to international crime and drug cartels (such as the attempt to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States in 2011¹⁸) to carry out assassinations, gather intelligence,  and use drug money to finance their activity which hides official Iranian involvement in narco-terrorist activity.

Meanwhile, mobster Naji Sharifi Zindashti fled Turkey to Iran and lives a public life, working openly with the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and, according to “informed sources,” running his drug business.

Iran has claimed for decades that “unsung soldiers” of its intelligence services are deployed across the country and beyond. It is now clear that at least some of these “unsung soldiers” are operating through major crime and drug trafficking organizations.

It should be noted that over the years, even as Iran has carried out assassinations in European countries, these Western nations have maintained trade relations with it, while ignoring repeated human rights violations in Iran and global terrorist operations outside it. Even now, despite the sanctions imposed on the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the European Union’s primary interest is to continue the economic ties with Iran. This is despite the pressure from human rights groups to condition the issue of economic cooperation to improving the regime’s conduct in the area of human rights violations. Iran’s “Teflon shield” may provide more immunity ahead of U.S. President-elect Biden’s entry into the White House in January and the possibility of a U.S. return to the framework of the JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2021.

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Notes