Name: Iran's Assassins | 60 Minutes Archive
Uploaded: 2026-03-01T21:38:42.000Z
Duration: 13 min 18 s
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Tensions keep rising between the US and Iran since the Israel Hamas war began.

Almost every week, Iranian backed militias have attacked US Bases in Syria and Iraq.

It's the latest example and a serious escalation of Tehran's use of proxy fighters like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Tonight, you'll hear of another type of proxy that Iran deploys that receives far less attention.

Tehran is hiring hitmen around the world in an effort to intimidate, abduct and assassinate perceived enemies of the regime.

And they're doing it right here on US Soil.

This video was posted online by a channel affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Gu.

It vows to kill former American government officials, including President Trump, to avenge the 2020 U.S.

assassination of the terrorism mastermind Qasem Soleimani.

Threats like this have been deemed credible enough that several of these officials have been under round the clock protection, including former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Iran reportedly offered a hitman a million dollars to kill him and John Bolton, the former national security Adviser.

They bargained the price for me would be $300,000, which I have to say I found insulting.

So what exactly was the plot against you?

The Revolutionary Guard sought to procure either my kidnapping or my assassination, not directly by a Revolutionary Guards member, but

by seeking a hitman who would carry out the job either in.

The FBI has an arrest warrant out for this Iranian officer, claiming that he hired the hitman online to travel to Washington, corner Bolton in a garage, and

But it turned out, lucky for Bolton, the assassin was an FBI informant.

This was a negotiation to murder an American citizen, a former government official.

We've got marked Secret Service cars that say police, United States Secret Service.

We talked to the FBI and several intelligence agencies, and

they told us that Iran's efforts are becoming more frequent and bolder and that they often go after vocal Iranian activists living abroad.

The idea behind assassination plot, behind kidnapping plot, is to keep you silent.

Masi Alinajad is a leader in the women's revolt against the law in Iran, mandating they wear a headscarf or hijab.

Forced to flee 14 years ago, she settled here in Brooklyn, where she encourages women back home to send her videos of them taking off the hijabs.

And she spreads those images online to her 10 million or so followers, fueling the protest movement.

So the mullahs began to focus on You, The FBI came and told you there was a plot against you.

There were like, six or seven FBI agents.

When they came to my house, they told me that your life is in danger.

I was like, okay, tell me something new, because we Iranians are used to it.

But they actually said, no, this time is different.

They said that the Iranian regime hired private investigator on US Soil to take photos of your movement, your daily life, your routine.

So they are here in New York, in Brooklyn.

The plot was to kidnap you and take you by speedboat to Venezuela.

Hey, it sounds like a scary movie to you now?

You see, it's a reality for us and a reality for the FBI that says the plan was to get her to Iran to stand trial.

It was the same for Jamshid Sharmad, another Iranian dissident who lived in Los Angeles for two decades and created a website where people in Iran could report human rights abuses.

In 2020, while he was changing planes in Dubai on a business trip, his family noticed his phone started heading in the wrong direction.

His daughter, Giselle Sharmad, soon saw her dad pop up on Iranian TV in a courtroom, looking petrified.

He's forced to confessions about crimes he did not commit.

The charge that they gave him is corruption on earth.

Is it a situation where he could actually be executed?

Any day they want to hang him from a crane in the middle of the city.

The original plot to kidnap Masi was thwarted.

But According to the FBI, a year later, in 2022, Iran paid this Azerbaijani living outside New York City $30,000 to buy a semi automatic rifle and kill her.

His plan was to take advantage of her friendliness to her neighbors.

He knew that I was the one offering flowers to strangers.

So he received a text message from the guy inside Iran saying that go and knock the door, then take her to the backyard garden.

If I had opened the door, I would have just given him a big smile and said, yes, let's go to my garden.

Her home security camera actually caught him on her porch trying to get in.

Eventually, he took off, but was pulled over for running a stop sign.

That's when the police found this in his car.

He's been in custody awaiting trial ever since.

Neither he nor two other men the prosecutors say were hired for the job were Iranian like him.

They were Eastern European and as is becoming a trademark of Iran shadow war, they were criminals.

This is what the Islamic Republic is really good at, like using drug dealers, using criminals to do their dirty job on the Western soil and maybe have deniability.

So why did they use proxies to have somebody who is not being tracked by intelligence or security agencies for this?

Matt Jukes, head of counterterrorism policing in Britain, says this is not just an American problem.

In the UK, they have foiled 15 Iranian kidnapping and assassination attempts since last year.

I have been involved in national security policing for over 20 years.

What we've seen in the last 18 months is a real acceleration.

We have been told that a lot of these criminal gangs hire other criminal gangs and then maybe a third group.

I think we're always going to see this collaboration between criminal organizations.

We know that this will not always be a direct line from a state organization to a threat to a potential kidnap.

This recording was given to us by a foreign intelligence agency.

I received a call from the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard.

This is an Iranian smuggler from Urmea, a town near the Turkish border.

He reveals to the foreign agents that he was approached by Iran's Revolutionary Guard with a deal.

They'll turn a blind eye to his smuggling if he helps them.

Their request was that I find people who could work for them.

Anything like catching someone for us so they can be beaten up or gotten rid of.

This surveillance video shows him recruiting a fellow smuggler for the task.

The man in white is Mansa Rasooli, an alleged drug dealer.

He agreed to arrange assassinations throughout Europe for the Iranian government for money.