Iran's Revolutionary Guards' chilling ties to murder, organized crime in Canada, U.S.
· Toronto Sun
Pakistani national Asif Merchant was an alleged proxy for Iran’s bloodthirsty Islamic Revolutionary Guards in America.
Merchant, 47, is now accused of orchestrating an assassination plot at the behest of the IRGC to take U.S. President Donald Trump off the board in 2024.
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
“This trial is happening in interesting times,” Judge Eric Komitee told lawyers this week in the case of Merchant, who is accused of trying to hire hit men to kill a U.S. politician.
The target was nameless but the accused IRGC puppet master had searched for Trump rally locations and his laptop contained photos of both Trump and then-president Joe Biden.
The IRGC has been widely connected to organized crime groups across the globe, including in Canada where they are banned. The paramilitary religious fanatics are the de facto Iranian mafia and are up to their eyeballs in criminal rackets, including drugs, murder and cyber scams.
Tight ties with Iran
In New York City, an FBI agent testified Tuesday that Merchant told her he had a Revolutionary Guard “handler” who he believed would help bankroll the plan.
Merchant has pleaded not guilty to attempted terrorism and other charges. His children live in the Islamic Republic and he has visited Iran often.
When Merchant was indicted in 2024, then-FBI director Christopher Wray said the case was “straight out of the Iranian regime’s playbook.”
And then-attorney general Merrick Garland portrayed it as an example of “Iran’s lethal plotting against Americans.”
Merchant told the FBI that one of his cousins introduced him to a Revolutionary Guard handler at some point in Iran. Formally called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the force has been prominent in Iran under the country’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Canada and the U.S. have declared the IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization.”
In June 2024, Merchant allegedly told undercover agents that he and associates in Pakistan were looking for people to steal documents, create protests at political events, “and the last thing is: Maybe you can, say, kill someone.”
Fleeing to Pakistan
“The third thing you wanted, like, that could be a big deal,” one of the agents observed. He dangled the possibility that “you want somebody’s wife killed?”
“No, no …maybe it’s some political person, maybe some other person,” said Merchant, who later explained that he didn’t yet know exactly whom.
“Wow,” the agent said, adding, “That’s gonna cost.”
Merchant was arrested as he was about to flee to Pakistan.
With the most recent battles setting the Middle East ablaze, there are increasing worries that the IRGC and their organized crime proxies will unleash a campaign of violence in Canada and the U.S.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
Business with cartels
IRGC has effectively made criminal organizations like the Mexican drug cartels an arm of the Iranian government. Profits from drugs, money laundering and other enterprises funds terrorism and helps the regime evade sanctions.
The money raised via IRGC rackets is a financial lifeline to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Although driven by an extremist piety, the Guards control wide swaths of the opium and heroin trade in Western Asia. In addition, the IRGC control a massive underground economy that generates billions for cash-strapped Iran and gives the mullah mob financial independence.
Agents of the IRGC have also played a role in commissioning murders-for-hire in North America. Mostly targeted are opposition leaders and those critical of the Islamic regime.
But the IRGC also operates outside the regime with its own army and navy. Some sources say it controls 50% of the Iranian economy.