By PMOI/MEK
August 21, 2018 – On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice declared that two Iranian men were arrested on charges of spying for the Iranian regime. The suspects, Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 38, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, were allegedly involved in conducting surveillance on organizations and individuals that the Iranian regime considers as enemies, most prominent among them the PMOI/MEK.
According to a DOJ press release, in September 2017, Ghorbani, a resident of California, attended an MEK rally in New York and photographed participants, who had gathered to protest against the Iranian regime. Ghorbani later contacted Doostdar and delivered 28 photographs of dissidents to him, for which he received $2,000 in cash. Ghorbani’s photos also contained hand-written annotations identifying the individuals who appeared in them.
Ghorbani later traveled to Iran for an “in-person briefing” with Iranian officials, according to the DOJ investigations.
Ghorbani later attended the 2018 Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington, D.C., also organized by the supporters of the MEK and NCRI, where he photographed speakers and attendees, which included Iranian dissidents from communities across the United States. Doostdar called Ghorbani 10 days later to discuss how to get the information gathered at the event back to Iran, according to the indictment.
Ghorbani will appear for a detention hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 21.
The revelation comes against the backdrop of an uptick in the Iranian regime’s terrorist and espionage activities abroad. In July, Belgian authorities arrested two Iranians who planned to bomb the Free Iran Gathering in Paris, where tens of thousands of Iranians had gathered to support nationwide protests in Iran. The terrorist plot involved an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, who was also arrested. Assadi served as the chief of intelligence operations in the Iranian regime’s embassy in Vienna, Austria.
In March, Albanian authorities foiled a terror plot aimed at PMOI/MEK members. Thousands of MEK members were relocated from Iraq to Albania in 2016. Since then, the Iranian regime has escalated its espionage activities in the country through its embassy.
The Iranian regime blames the PMOI/MEK for coordinating and guiding the nationwide protests that have been ongoing in the cities of Iran since December. Iran’s regime has vowed to take revenge against the PMOI/MEK members.
The NCRI and MEK have called on all European countries to shut down the Iranian regime’s diplomatic missions in their countries to stop terrorist activities.
The NCRI also issued Two statements on August 16 regarding the Iranian regime's spying activities against the PMOI/MEK.
