US and UK impose sanctions on alleged assassination network

The United States and United Kingdom have jointly imposed sanctions on a network of individuals which, they allege, has targeted Iranian opposition activists for assassination, including in the US and Britain, on the orders of Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The action imposes sanctions on 11 members of the network, including its leader, whom the US Treasury Department has identified as ‘narcotics trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti’.

It said that the ‘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,’ and has plotted operations in the United States and Britain, while also being linked to murders in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Turkey, according to the US and UK governments.

Treasury said that in 2021 Zindashti’s network recruited Canadian national and British Columbia-based Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Group member Damion Patrick John Ryan to assassinate individuals in the United States who had fled Iran. Ryan also recruited Canadian national and Hell’s Angels affiliate Adam Richard Pearson to carry out the murders, it added. Treasury designated both, who are presently incarcerated on unrelated criminal matters.

The UK’s new Iran Sanctions Regulations that came into force last month gives the British government authority to act against malign activity by Tehran anywhere in the world.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2052

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-us-step-up-action-to-tackle-domestic-threat-from-iran