The U.S. Department of Justice has filed charges against three individuals connected to an Iranian assassination plot targeting Donald Trump before he assumed office as President-elect.
The accused include Farhad Shakeri, 51, an Iranian national, alongside Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both residing in New York. Rivera and Loadholt were taken into custody in Brooklyn and Staten Island, respectively, while Shakeri remains at large in Iran.
Attorney General Merrick Garland described Iran as a “grave threat to U.S. national security,” underscoring the danger posed by Iranian operatives leveraging a criminal network to execute Tehran’s assassination directives.
According to Garland, Shakeri allegedly coordinated a scheme involving Rivera and Loadholt to locate and assassinate a U.S. resident critical of the Iranian regime.
Court documents reveal that the plot to silence the target, known as Victim-1, extended over several months. Rivera and Loadholt allegedly received extensive instructions from Shakeri, including plans to surveil Victim-1’s residence and routine locations. Shakeri, a reported asset of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), allegedly communicated through encrypted messages with his co-defendants, encouraging patience to ambush the target.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of Iran’s “brazen attempts” to target U.S. citizens and dissidents critical of Tehran, noting that the IRGC, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2019, has been implicated in prior plots on American soil.
Wray credited U.S. intelligence and law enforcement for thwarting this plot and reaffirmed the FBI’s resolve to protect Americans from Iran’s international assassination efforts.
In recent statements, Shakeri allegedly admitted that the IRGC tasked him with formulating plans to kill Trump and surveil Jewish-American targets in New York.
He claimed that the IRGC offered him up to $500,000 to murder Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, further illustrating Iran’s extensive reach in directing attacks against perceived enemies abroad.
Shakeri faces multiple counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, alongside charges of murder-for-hire and money laundering.
|SituationReport|
