In March, a Manhattan jury convicted 2 mobsters – 1 Georgian and 1 Azerbaijani-Russian – for attempting to execution an Iranian activist and American citizen in fresh York. A 3rd member, the triggerman, was arrested in July 2022 close the would-be victim’s doorstep with an AK-47 assault firearm and testified as a government witness. 2 months later, the United Kingdom arrested 4 Iranian nationals, for the first time, for targeting government opponents in the UK. Iran has shown the clearest pattern of state operatives hiring local criminals for overseas assassinations. But the nexus of crime and resurgent hybrid war besides concerns another adversaries of the West – Russia, China and North Korea. It even involves strategic partners like India, leading any safety scholars to predict a “fifth wave” of global organized crime.
The embassy of the muslim Republic of Iran in Knightsbridge, London. The British abroad Office summoned the Iranian ambassador after the UK government arrested four, and charged three, Iranians for National safety Act violations. Photo: wikimedia.org
Spanning Iran, the Caucasus, Central Europe and the United States, the Manhattan murder-for-hire case is unique in revealing 2 trends: how states usage irregularly arrived organized criminals in the West, and the enduring relevance of Soviet-style organized crime in large power competition.
The subversive threat
According to the US charges, the game originated with Iran’s muslim Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization, a state safety agency on the US abroad Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list since 2019. An IRGC-IO general hired Rafat Amirov, an Azerbaijani and Russian citizen in Iran and a Russian mafia group member, to the sum of 500,000 US dollars. Their occupation was to kill Masih Alinejad, a fresh York-based Iranian-American journalist. Khalid Mehdiyev, who arrived with false papers in the United States, illegally bought an AK-47 to complete the job. In the UK case, 3 defendants besides arrived by irregular means. The attempted murder-for-hire followed previous attempts by “Iranian intelligence officials and assets” to kidnap the writer for rendition.
The result exemplifies the tradeoffs of outsourcing state force to transnational criminals.
First, it enables political subversion for states with reduced operating capacities in the mark country. Pariahs like Iran and North Korea have a minimal diplomatic presence in the West. In the United States, they deficiency embassies and consulates to supply cover and immunity from prosecution for intelligence officers. Russia has been likewise hamstrung following a wave of diplomatic expulsions in 2018, which followed the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal by Russian GRU military intelligence operatives in Salisbury, and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The pattern in point is the string of arson attacks in Poland, Lithuania and the United Kingdom in 2024 by Ukrainian, Romanian and another non-Russian citizens who, according to European intelligence agencies, were hired by Moscow. Since 2024, Poland has shuttered 2 Russian consulates, while Czechia and France publically attributed erstwhile sabotage attempts to the Kremlin’s GRU military intelligence agency.
The manager of Britain’s home safety agency, MI5, has warned of Russia’s mission to “generate mayhem on British and European streets”. On May 7th, the head of the UK’s National Cyber safety Centre (NCSC) Richard Horne said that Moscow is “waging acts of sabotage, frequently utilizing criminal proxies in their plots”. Both leaders are surely investigating Russian links after the Crown Prosecution Service charged 2 Ukrainians and 1 Romanian national in connection to arson attacks targeted at Prime Minister Keir Starmer. These actions inactive have unexplained motives. While there is no public evidence that Russia’s sabotage and assassination run has successfully reached North America yet, Iran’s clearly has, showing an enduring threat.
Another advantage of recruiting criminals is low cost, which has been presented in item in Tehran’s case thanks to US prosecutors. Iran spent only 30,000 US dollars on an advance payment to assassinate Alinejad. At the same time, Mehdiyev testified that success would consequence in a bounty of 160,000 US dollars. This is likely much cheaper than Iran organizing its own logistics, with western safety services highly vigilant erstwhile it comes to the Iranian threat. Additionally, no Iranians were at hazard of arrest. Diplomatic blowback was besides alternatively quiet overall. respective levels of outsourcing helped obscure Iran’s function – Mehdiyev was even told that the operation was Baku’s “gift” to Iran. Even a figment of deniability can prevent western governments from retaliating for subversive acts.
Compared to state operators, criminals besides have disadvantages, starting with mediocre professionalism. 1 mafia enforcer in fresh York proposed burning down Alinejad’s home alternatively of killing her. And Mehdiyev, despite having around a decade’s experience in violent crime, likely had no surveillance or covert action training on par with Russian or Iranian intelligence. His lawyer argued that he wanted to “scam” the Iranians without killing Alinejad. The defendants yet helped the authorities by taking convenient selfies with their mob tattoos.
Rafat Amirov, an Azerbaijani-Russian citizen and resident of Iran, with his birthday cake. The eight-pointed stars symbolize his position as a “vor v zakone” (thief in law). Screenshot from US Department of Justice, United States of America v. Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev indictment.
The russian connection
The Russian crime group, identified as the “Thieves-in-Law” (Vory v Zakone) in court documents, passed instructions through Polad Omarov, a Georgian citizen extradited from Czechia, down to Mehdiyev, who joined the group as a teenager in Azerbaijan before illegally entering the US. The hitman claimed to follow orders from a vor or oğru (thief in Russian and Azeri, respectively) leader in an Azerbaijani prison. He besides noted that they adhered to the correct criminal lifestyle, which involves never cooperating with governments.
Polad Omarov, a Georgian citizen who resided in Slovenia and Czechia and passed Iranian targeting information from Rafat Amirov to the hitman and sports a vor v zakone tattoo. Screenshot from US Department of Justice, United States of America v. Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev indictment.
These traditions show the amazing continuity of russian criminal culture and operating methods. The word vory v zakone originates in the russian Union’s gulag system. The superpower’s collapse in 1991, amid liberalized capital and border controls around the world, was “the single most crucial event” for the expansion of globalized crime in the next 2 decades. The British writer Misha Glenny gives an effective planet tour of these developments in his 2008 book. The American safety student Phil Williams described the russian collapse, globalization and neoliberalism as triggers for the “third wave” of organized crime – the first originated in “hotspots” like Sicily, and the second went global with narcotics after the Second planet War. Mark Galeotti described this fresh shift in the 2000s through discussion of the legendary, tattooed vory, who transformed into “hybrid gangster-businessmen” with small concern for traditions. Evidently, the vory are inactive relevant. Eurasian crime groups (calling them Russian is besides narrow) have become intertwined with waves of diaspora emigration after the russian collapse and established functional outposts in key entryways like fresh York, Istanbul and Dubai.
Moreover, the transnational criminals abroad clearly have ties at home that complicate their willingness to cooperate with host governments. Mehdiyev did not testify until the national Bureau of Investigation (FBI) helped relocate his parent from Azerbaijan to the US and he was granted the “golden ticket” of a legalized stay. However, this tool is becoming more precarious amid the emergence of populist movements and anti-immigration agendas across North America and Europe.
Khalid Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani citizen residing in Yonkers, fresh York, who appeared at Alinejad’s doorstep with an AK-47. Screenshot from US Department of Justice, United States of America v. Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev indictment.
No rules, no boundaries
Transnational criminal groups stay a low-cost, but besides low professionalism, policy option for large power adversaries of the West. They have been utilized time and again by Russia and Iran with fewer evident reasons to halt this practice. This has respective implications for western law enforcement, home safety services, and diplomatic policymakers.
First, the line between national safety and home crime will proceed to deteriorate and is improbable to be restored any time soon. Pariah states’ co-option of criminals – especially immigrants – will further securitize immigration and policing debates, as late seen in Poland, Germany and the UK’s asylum policy restrictions. The Trump administration has besides utilized the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan cartel members, any of whom could now possibly end up in Kosovo.
At the same time, national safety organizations may lose valuable leverage in investigating and prosecuting transnational criminal networks working for large power competitors if western governments restrict asylum options for informants and their families, like Mehdiyev’s “golden ticket”. This hazard will worsen amid the deteriorating global taboo against refoulement, or the forced return of asylum seekers to countries where they will be in danger. This especially has implications for large power competition erstwhile police states are concerned, like in the cases of Uyghurs in China or anti-war activists in Russia. Western authorities may have good reasons to deny asylum cases, but scandalous denials may influence future possible informants to ask: “is that what you might do to me?”
Lastly, western abroad ministries should consider this criminal/state nexus in their calculus for diplomatic limitations on large power competitors. With fresh meetings in Istanbul and Riyadh, the United States is in talks with Russia about restoring diplomatic operations, having closed its consulates in San Francisco, Seattle, and annexes in fresh York and Washington. Governments like Hungary and Slovakia, and European populist parties elsewhere, would besides like to see closer diplomatic ties with Russia. specified restorations will be a tiny but crucial origin in an eventual war settlement in Ukraine.
The West should remember that, if opened, these facilities are more likely to be staffed by professional operators than mafia hitmen taking selfies with mob tattoos.
Alexander Neuman holds an MA in global safety and a BA in global Politics and Russian and Eurasian Studies from George Mason University. He is besides a erstwhile visiting student at the University of Warsaw and an alumnus of fresh east Europe’s Think Tank School.
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