FBI: Iranian agent behind continuing assassination plots against Trump, others

Three men have been charged in federal court in Iranian plots to assassinate President Donald Trump and other U.S. citizens, according to the FBI.

The agent, who served 14 years in prison in the U.S. for robbery, was asked by Iran to use his network of criminal associates to help surveil and plan the murders of Trump and other U.S. citizens, said a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ) announcing the charges.

The agent, Farhad Shakeri, 51, an Afghan national, and his associates, Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York were charged in the Southern District of New York.

“Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad. This has to stop,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District. 

Rivera was arrested in Brooklyn and Loadholt was arrested in Staten Island. Shakeri, who came to the U.S. as a child, is believed to have fled to Iran. 

The criminal complaint said that Shakeri voluntarily submitted to several telephone interviews with the FBI in order to get a reduction in sentence for someone else serving in a U.S. prison. 

In those interviews he detailed how he was recruited by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to plan the assassination of a U.S. citizen, an opponent of the Iranian regime, identified in the criminal complaint as “Victim-1.” 

Shakeri was offered $1.5 million for video evidence that “Victim-1” had been killed. The video was necessary because the IRGC agent indicated that multiple death squads were already targeting the list, so proof was needed that “Shakeri’s team had committed the murder,” said the complaint. 

It is believed that “Victim-1” is Masih Alinejad, an outspoken Iranian American critic of Iran’s draconian laws governing women.  

“I am shocked. I just learned from the @FBI  that two men were arrested yesterday in a new plot to kill me at Fairfield University, where I was scheduled to give a talk,” said Alinejad via  X. I also learned that the person assigned to assassinate @realDonaldTrump was also assigned to kill me on U.S. soil.” 

In the complaint, the FBI said that Shakeri claimed that in September 2024, his IRGC contact told him to drop all other efforts and make the assassination of President Donald Trump his “focus”.  

The IRGC agent noted Iran had already spent a lot of money trying to kill Trump and “the money’s not an issue,” said Shakeri, according to the FBI. 

If Shakeri couldn’t provide a plan within seven days to kill Trump, the IRGC agent said they would wait until after the election to try and kill Trump, noted the criminal complaint.   

The Department of Justice speculated that the assassination of Trump is sought by Iran for “the death of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC-QF who was killed by a U.S. military strike in Baghdad on or about January 3, 2020.”  

Trump ordered the strike, in part, because of “Soleimani’s direct involvement in attacks against U.S. service members coupled with his intent to continue threatening U.S. service members,” according to The Jag Reporter, an official publication of the United States Air Force’s Office of The Judge Advocate General. 

In addition to the assassination of Trump and “Victim-1,” Shakeri said the IRGC asked him to kill other U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, as well as Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. 

In October, the FBI issued a bulletin warning about an attempted mass shooting event in Sri Lanka based on information provided by Shakeri, which resulted in the arrest of three people. 

The criminal complaint includes text messages between the defendants about the U.S. murder plot against “Victim-1” and screenshots of surveillance carried out against her.     

Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt have all been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. 

Shakeri has also been charged under several laws outlawing the support of foreign terrorist organizations and evading U.S. imposed Iranian economic sanctions. 

“Today’s charges are another message to those who continue in their efforts – we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of bad actors, no matter where they reside, and will stop at nothing to bring to justice those who harm our safety and security,” said U.S. Attorney Williams.