The leader of a transnational Iranian assassination network recruited a “full-patch” Hells Angel to organize the murder of two defectors now living in Maryland, at the direction of the Islamic Republic’s feared Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Accused narcotics trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti, aka “Big Guy,” has carried out “numerous acts of… repression including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics,” according to the feds. In a four-count indictment unsealed Monday, prosecutors say Zindashti, 49, agreed to pay $350,000, plus $20,000 to cover expenses, to Canadian outlaw biker Damion Patrick John Ryan, 43, and 29-year-old Adam Richard Pearson, an “affiliate” member of the Angels, for the hit.
Pearson, who is also Canadian, vowed to “make [an] example” of one of the victims by blowing his head clean off his body, according to the indictment.
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Zindashti and his illicit empire are protected by Iranian security forces in exchange for his network “carrying out heinous operations on the government’s behalf,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which on Monday blacklisted Zindashti and several of his associates from accessing the U.S. financial system. The United Kingdom imposed its own set of sanctions on Monday, as well.
His network has reportedly been responsible for murders in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Canada, and Turkey.
The Maryland case can be traced back to December 2020, when the indictment says Zindashti contacted Ryan on Sky ECC, a now-defunct encrypted cellular network favored by drug cartels. The two communicated over the next month or so, discussing “jobs,” “equipment,” “tools,” and plans to “make some money,” the indictment alleges. Sometime in January, Zindashdi messaged Ryan about “a specific job in the United States,” it says.
“Ryan told Zindashti that although doing a job in the USA was challenging, he ‘might have someone to do it,’” the indictment goes on. “Ryan told Zindashti that ‘east coast is very hard for me. West I can do more and have more options.’” Ryan said his guy “was very far away,” but was willing to travel, according to the indictment, which adds, “Ryan then asked Zindashti for ‘equipment and a car.’”
Ryan, who survived his own assassination attempt in 2015, then messaged Pearson, also on Sky ECC, to discuss a “job” he had for him in Maryland. Pearson, who was at the time on the run from Canadian authorities and living illegally in Minneapolis under an assumed name, told Ryan he had people he trusted and that “shooting is probably the easiest thing for them,” the indictment states. Ryan told Pearson he’d likely need three people plus a driver for the hit, to which Ryan said he’d want at least $100,000 to do it.
Ryan said he would get Pearson what he wanted, but that the assassination needed “to be over kill [sic] lol,” the indictment goes on. “Pearson then told Ryan he would encourage his recruits to ‘shoot [the victim] in the head a lot [to] make an example,’ and offered that, if the job was time-sensitive, he could do it himself. In a subsequent message, Pearson told Ryan that he would ‘make sure i hit this guy in the head with ATLEAST [sic] half the clip’ and that he would tell his contacts that ‘we gotta erase his head from his torso.’”
On January 30, 2021, Zindashti messaged Ryan, asking for an update, according to the indictment. Ryan said he was getting “things in order,” and that he would need money to complete the assignment. A few days later, they settled on a total of $370,000, including expenses, and a few days after that, Zindashti connected Ryan on Sky ECC with a person identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator-1.”
“We have a 4 man team ready,” Ryan messaged Co-Conspirator 1, who was IDed separately on Monday by the U.S. Treasury Department as Nihat Abdul Kadir Asan, “a close Zindashti associate also based in Iran who has played a pivotal role in logistical planning for many of the network’s operations, including the network’s plot to assassinate individuals in the United States.”
Ryan and Asan went on to exchange numerous messages over the next several days about payment, according to the indictment. It says Ryan asked for the intended victims’ names and location, and Asan sent back photographs of a man and a woman, and two maps with their address highlighted.
In March 2021, Asan “facilitated a $20,000 payment to Ryan for the purpose of covering travel expenses associated with the plot to murder the victims,” the indictment concludes.
It is unclear how close the team got to the targets, or how the FBI, which investigated the case alongside the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, discovered the alleged plan. However, Pearson was arrested by FBI agents in Minneapolis on July 26, 2021, on first-degree murder charges over the 2019 killing of an Alberta man. Ryan was arrested in Ontario less than a year later, on drug- and gun-trafficking charges.
The two are presently incarcerated in Canada. Zindashti lives in Iran, where he is out of reach for U.S. authorities, for now. All three are charged with one count of conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; Pearson is also facing one count of possession of a firearm by a fugitive from justice and one count of possession of a firearm by an alien unlawfully in the United States.
The intended victims of the alleged assassination plot have not been publicly identified.
“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 G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement.
Separately, Brian E. Nelson, under secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said the Iranian regime’s “continued efforts to target dissidents and activists demonstrate the regime’s deep insecurity and attempt to expand Iran’s domestic repression internationally. The United States, alongside our international allies and partners, including the United Kingdom, will continue to combat the Iranian regime’s transnational repression and will utilize all available tools to stop this threat, especially on U.S. soil.”
