Two Iranian men were indicted on Monday for allegedly spying for Tehran in the United States, Reuters reported.
The Justice Department said the two are suspected of conducting surveillance at a Jewish facility and gathering information on backers of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq.
The two have been named as Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 38, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California. They were charged in the indictment with acting on behalf of Iran by conducting the surveillance, the Justice Department said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
Both were arrested on August 9.
The indictment alleges Doostdar traveled from Iran to the United States in July 2017 to collect intelligence about entities considered to be enemies of the Iranian government, including Israeli and Jewish interests as well as people associated with MEK, it said.
The Justice Department said Doostdar conducted surveillance in July 2017 of the Rohr Chabad House in Chicago, including photographing the security features.
Ghorbani attended an MEK rally in New York on September 20, 2017, to protest the current Iranian government, taking photographs of the participants, which he later passed on to Doostdar and was paid about $2,000.
The photos, many with handwritten notes about the participants, were found in Ghorbani’s luggage at a U.S. airport as he was returning to Iran in December 2017, the Justice Department said, according to Reuters.
Ghorbani also attended an MEK-affiliated Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington in May, where he again appeared to photograph speakers and attendees, the department said. He later spoke with Doostdar to discuss clandestine methods to deliver the information to Iran, it said.
Iran considers the Mujahideen-e Khalq to be a terrorist group that seeks the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The group was listed in the past as a terrorist organization by the U.S., but was removed from the blacklist in 2012, angering Iran.
Last year, a Pakistani man was convicted in Germany for spying for Iran. He was accused of gathering intelligence on Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society, and an Israeli-French economics professor in Paris, for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
News of his arrest first surfaced in 2016, when the German Federal Prosecutor announced that it had indicted him for espionage activity against “institutions and persons” in Germany on behalf of the Iranian regime from July, 2015 through July, 2016.
Following the incident, Germany summoned Iran’s ambassador to warn Tehran against spying on individuals and groups with close ties to Israel, calling such acts an unacceptable breach of German law.
If You SEE Something DO something about it, call the Police!!!!
How many people have concealed-carry permits in Crown Heights and how many guys carry on Shabbos and Yom Tov?
Like the wise saying goes:
כבדהו וחשדהו
It really isn’t rocket science to have protocols and basic training to greet and screen visitors. Most countries have this in place at shuls and schools, yet we are lagging behind. Chec out http://www.thecso.org for tips and training.
Chabad which is known for their generosity and open embrace of the stranger, must at the same be a bit cautious, due to our
troubling times. During the height of Communism it was a well known fact that KGB agents used to attend the Farbrengens in 770 in order to learn the activities of Chabad behind the Iron Curtain. The Rebbe himself said several times at Farbrengen that he cannot elaborate due to the presence of “Umgevuntshe Elements” (in Yiddish) meaning the presence of undesirable elements.
If you see something, say something. If something looks not right, don’t shrug it off and keep walking.