Hell’s Angels and Criminal Gangs: Iran’s Secret Weapon to Silence Dissent in the U.S. and Beyond

Hell’s Angels and Criminal Gangs: Iran’s Secret Weapon to Silence Dissent in the U.S. and Beyond

A new report reveals that Iran has been recruiting members of the Hells Angels biker gang and other criminal groups to carry out attacks on dissidents in the U.S. and Europe. These covert operations are reportedly being directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence, with targets including a former Iranian military officer living in Maryland, an Iranian-American journalist in New York, and an exiled reporter in London, according to The Washington Post.

We’re not facing the typical suspects, said Matt Jukes, the U.K.’s head of counterterrorism policing. What we have here is a hostile state actor that views the battlefield without borders. Targets in London are just as legitimate as those in Iran.

The report, citing the Washington Institute, links Iran to 88 violent plots over the past five years, involving assassination and abduction attempts. U.K. officials have uncovered 16 of these plots in just the last two years.

One such plot involved Naji Sharifi Zindashti, an alleged heroin kingpin based in Iran. He is said to have contracted two Canadian Hells Angels members for $350,000 to assassinate an Iranian defector and his wife living in Maryland. According to a U.S. indictment, one of the bikers messaged the other to make sure I hit this guy in the head with ATLEAST half the clip and added, we gotta erase his head from his torso. The defector, as described by U.S. officials, was a former IRGC officer turned CIA informant.

The bikers, identified as Damion Ryan, 43, and Adam Pearson, 29, signed onto the assassination plot in March 2021 but the plan collapsed after Belgian and Dutch forces cracked the encrypted messaging system they were using. Both men were later arrested, Ryan in Ottawa in 2022 during a raid, and Pearson in Minnesota by FBI agents.

Another Hells Angels-linked plot saw Iran hire a gang member to bomb a synagogue in Essen, Germany. In March this year, Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, based in London, was stabbed four times outside his home by hired criminals who then fled to Eastern Europe.

Additionally, the U.S. Justice Department charged three men in an Iran-backed scheme targeting Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad in New York. In July 2022, a gunman linked to a Russian criminal network appeared at her home, but the plot was thwarted.

Iran’s U.N. mission has denied any involvement in these plots, stating, “The Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intent nor the plan to engage in assassination or abduction operations, whether in the West or any other country.