Naji Sharifi Zindashti, according to the prosecution, runs a criminal network that targets activists and dissidents overseas.
The criminal case is a part of a concerning trend of international repression, according to US Department of Justice officials, when agents from nations like China and Iran target dissidents and defectors for campaigns of intimidation, harassment, and occasionally violence.
Prosecutors claim that Zindashti planned to kill two Maryland citizens between December 2020 and March 2021 in collusion with two guys from Canada.
Prosecutors said that the intended victims of the murder-for-hire conspiracy escaped to the United States after one of them defected from Iran, but they did not name the victims.
The Justice Department claimed that in the end, the plot was thwarted.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the top national security official at the Justice Department, said in a statement, “To those in Iran who plot murders on US soil and the criminal actors who work with them, let today’s charges send a clear message: the Department of Justice will pursue you as long as it takes – and wherever you are – and deliver justice.”
