The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint on Tuesday alleging that a Pakistani national with Iranian ties initiated a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate U.S. politicians.
The document alleges that Asif Merchant, 46, attempted to hire hitmen in New York City after spending time in Iran.
“Merchant advised the undercover U.S. law-enforcement officers that he was looking for three services from them: theft of documents, arranging protests at political rallies and for them to ‘kill somebody,’” the complaint says. “Merchant stated that the person he wanted them to murder was a ‘political person.’”
“During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the ‘representative’ in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S.,” the complaint adds.
During the meeting, Merchant also told the undercover officers that he would let them know who the target was at the end of August or the beginning of September after he had left the country and agreed to pay them a $5,000 advance on the murder.
Merchant had previously told a confidential source working with law enforcement that the victims would be “targeted here” in the United States and that “the people who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world.”
The complaint does not say who Merchant intended to assassinate or explicitly claim that Merchant was acting on Iranian orders. However, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in a statement that Iran has repeatedly sought revenge against Americans for the 2020 killing of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani.
“For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani,” Garland said. “The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens.”
FBI director Christopher Wray added that the plot was “straight out of the Iranian playbook” and described Merchant as having “close ties to Iran.” The complaint notes that Merchant has a wife and children in Iran, as well as a wife and children in Pakistan.
In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of the IRGC with attempted murder-for-hire in a plot to kill former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton.
In July, Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, announced that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that Iran was attempting to gain influence over and provide funding to anti-Israel protests in the United States.
U.S. law enforcement agents arrested Merchant in July before he could leave the country. He is now in federal custody awaiting prosecution in the Eastern District of New York.
