The US Treasury announced that the US and UK have imposed sanctions on a network that targeted Iranian dissidents for assassination on Iran's orders.
The U.S. Treasury Department said the network was directed by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and had imposed sanctions on 11 people involved, including Iranian drug trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi Zindashti.
“The Iranian regime's continued efforts to target dissidents and activists demonstrate the regime's deep insecurity and threaten to commit to repression within Iran,'' said Treasury Department Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson. We are looking to expand internationally.”
There was no immediate comment from Iran.
The Treasury Department said the network, led by Sharifi Zindashti, carried out assassinations and kidnappings across several jurisdictions to silence those believed to be critical of Tehran.
The Treasury Department's action freezes the U.S. assets of those targeted and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them.
The Treasury Department said the network in 2021 identified Damion Patrick John Ryan, a Canadian citizen and member of the British Columbia-based Hells Angels Outlaw Motorcycle Group, as a person in the United States who had fled Iran. He announced that he had been hired to assassinate individuals.
Ryan is also suspected of recruiting Canadian Hells Angels player Adam Richard Pearson to carry out the murder, the Treasury Department said. Both men are currently imprisoned overseas on unrelated charges.
The sanctions come amid rising tensions in the Middle East. The United States and Britain blamed Iranian-backed groups for a drone strike early Monday in Jordan, near the border with Syria, that killed three U.S. service members.
Britain has imposed sanctions on Iranian officials it says were involved in threatening to kill journalists in the UK and on Iranian officials it says are members of an international criminal organization linked to Tehran.
The UK Foreign Office announced sanctions against seven individuals and one organization, including senior Iranian officials and members of organized crime groups collaborating with the regime.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a statement: “The Iranian regime and the criminal organizations working on its behalf pose an unacceptable threat to British security.”
“The UK and the US have sent a clear message: we will not tolerate this threat,” he added.
