Were it not for a traffic violation, a murder-for-hire scheme plotted in July 2022 on behalf of the Iranian government might have taken the life of an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist living in New York.
Instead, two men described by federal prosecutors as Russian mob leaders were sentenced this week for their roles in the failed plot to kill Masih Alinejad, who had been a harsh critic of Iran and its human rights abuses before leaving the country in 2009.
Rafat Amirov of Iran and Polad Omarov of Georgia each received 25-year terms, the U.S. Justice Department said Oct. 30. They were found guilty in March after a two-week trial of murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering, among other charges.
“The defendants and their criminal associates came chillingly close to gunning down an Iranian-American journalist on the streets of New York,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg. “We are committed to holding accountable those who join forces with this vile regime.”
Alinejad, who had publicized Iran’s discriminatory and oppressive treatment of women, repression of political expression and killings of Iranian protesters, has been the target of multiple Iran-ordered plots to harass, intimidate and/or kidnap her, the Justice Department said.
“The plot exposed at trial involved actors on three continents, culminating with a hitman with an AK-47 outside Ms. Alinejad’s apartment,” said Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
According to court papers and trial evidence, the most recent plots prior to the murder-for-hire scheme took place in 2020 and 2021, when Iranian intelligence officials and assets conspired to kidnap Alinejad from the U.S. in an attempt to silence her ongoing criticism of the regime.
“I am grateful to FBI for foiling the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry’s plot to kidnap me,” Alinejad said after the plot was exposed. “We have been scared of the Islamic regime for a lifetime, but now the Islamic regime is scared of me.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps turned to Amirov and Omarov when those efforts failed, court documents said. Both were high-ranking members of the Bazghandi Network, an Azerbaijani faction of the Russian Mob: Amirov was a so-called vor, the mob’s highest rank, while Omarov, who aspired to be a vor, was the cousin of one.
The guard corps offered Amirov $500,000 to carry out the crime and provided him with personal details about Alinejad, including her home address in Brooklyn, according to the documents.
Prominent New York-based Iranian-American dissident and journalist Masih Alinejad makes a witness statement in this courtroom sketch next to Polad Omarov and Rafar Amirov, who were convicted of involvement in an unsuccessful Iran-backed plot to kill her. Each were sentenced to 25 years in prison at a federal court hearing in New York, U.S., October 29, 2025.
Around July 2022, Amirov sent the information to Omarov. Omarov then shared it with Khalid Mehdiyev, another mobster who lived in Yonkers, New York, so that he could monitor and ultimately kill Alinejad.
Amirov and Omarov arranged delivery of $30,000 to Mehdiyev, a portion of which he used to purchase an AK-47-style assault rifle, two magazines and 66 rounds of ammunition, the documents said.
Mehdiyev repeatedly traveled to Alinejad’s neighborhood to stake out her residence, sending photographs, videos and updates on his activities to Omarov, who passed them on to Amirov.
According to the documents, the events in late July 2022 unfolded as follows:
On July 24, Mehdiyev told Omarov that he was “at the crime scene.” Three days later, Omarov told Amirov that Mehdiyev was ready to execute the order: “This matter will be over today,” he wrote.
Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad celebrates outside the courthouse in New York on October 29, 2025 after a judge jailed two men for 25 years each for a plot allegedly hatched by Tehran to kill her. Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, both members of an eastern European criminal gang, orchestrated a failed plot to assassinate Alinejad, who has been highly critical of Iran and its human rights abuses.
The next day, July 28, Mehdiyev sent Omarov a video taken from inside his car of him with his rifle. “We are ready,” he texted.
However, as he drove away after staking out the residence, Mehdiyev was stopped for a traffic violation. Inside the vehicle, officers discovered the assault rifle, ammunition, gloves, a black ski mask and about $1,100 in cash, the documents said. A bullet was in the rifle’s chamber.
Mehdiyev was taken into custody, and before long the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was demanding return of its money.
Law enforcement officials said the case was part of a disturbing rise in plots involving criminal networks paid by Iran to target dissidents in the U.S. and around the world.
“The plot, orchestrated by the Iranian government to assassinate a dissident living in America, demonstrates the lengths to which authoritarian actors will go to silence voices of freedom,” said Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Two mobsters sentenced in Iranian plot to kill NY journalist
