FOLLOW US

In June 2020  the Iranian government changed tactics. They began plotting to abduct her from the US. The indictment claims Iranian agents hired private investigators in the US to keep surveillance on the Alinejad family in Brooklyn. They told the surveillance team she was a missing person from Dubai and had fled the country to avoid paying the debt. 

The Iranians had done extensive research and even watched the family on a live feed.  They were in the midst of organizing a way out of the US with their victim when the FBI disrupted the plan to kidnap journalist Alinejad.

“Every person in the United States must be free from harassment, threats, and physical harm by foreign powers,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Lesko for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. 

“As alleged, four of the defendants monitored and planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin who has been critical of the regime’s autocracy, and to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim’s fate would have been uncertain at best,” said U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York.

Masih Alinejad speaks out

William Sweeney, the head of New York’s FBI office, also gave a statement saying, “This is not some far-fetched movie plot.”

“We allege a group, backed by the Iranian government, conspired to kidnap a US-based journalist here on our soil and forcibly return her to Iran,” Sweeney emphasized, “Not on our watch.”

When the indictment was made public, Alinejad explained she had been cooperating with the FBI since they approached her eight months ago. The agents showed pictures of her taken by the alleged plotters. The FBI moved her and her husband to a series of safe houses during the investigation.

“The FBI did a great job to make me feel safe here, but to be honest, I’m a little bit disappointed with Biden’s administration, because I’m still waiting for them to take strong action,” Alinejad said. 

“When Jamal Khashoggi got brutally murdered, the whole world made statements of condemnation. I need the same, because another regime in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic, was trying to kidnap me. So that is why I want the Biden administration to be strong instead of just going after them, having a deal with them, they have to care about human rights as well.”

The joint investigation involves the  FBI’s New York Field Office, Counterintelligence-Cyber Division, and Iran Threat Task Force.

The prosecution will be handled by trial Attorney Nathan Swinton of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael D. Lockard, Jacob H. Gutwillig, and Matthew J.C. Hellman of the Southern District of New York.