Two Canadians and an Iranian man were charged as part of a murder-for-hire plot against two people in Maryland who previously fled Iran, the Department of Justice announced Monday.
Court documents allege that the plan’s mastermind, the Iranian Naji Sharifi Zindashti, communicated with the two Canadians through encrypted messaging service SkyECC about the intended victims and payment for their deaths.
The Treasury Department concurrently announced sanctions against an Iranian “transnational assassinations network” connected to Zindashti, which the department said operates on behalf of the Iranian intelligence service.
“To those in Iran who plot murders on U.S. 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,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement.
Zindashti was described as a “narco-trafficker” by the Treasury Department, which alleges his “criminal empire” was protected by the Iranian government in exchange for his work organizing international killings.
Both of the Canadians involved in the Maryland plots were members of the Hell’s Angels biker gang in British Columbia, the Treasury Department said.
Zindashti had assassinated three Iranian government critics in Turkey. Six other Iranians were also targeted by new Treasury sanctions in connection with the killings, the department announced.
The three men were charged with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Zindashti is based in Iran, while the two Canadians are already in custody in Canada on unrelated charges.