Criminal gangs hired by Iran are spying on British Jews to prepare for potential assassination operations against prominent community members, a UK minister has said, after a local report said Tehran is “mapping” Diaspora Jews with the aim of retaliating for a potential Israeli military strike.
“We know that the Iranians are using non-traditional sources to carry out these operations, including organized criminal gangs. They are paying criminal gangs to conduct surveillance. Basically, the Iranians are using crooks based in Britain to spy for them,” Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat told the Jewish Chronicle on Thursday.
The news outlet earlier this month published a detailed testimony by Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a former staunch pro-Iran pundit who met the Islamic Republic’s most senior leaders before radically changing her views, rediscovering her Jewish heritage and becoming a vocal critic of the regime.
Perez-Shakdam recounted her 2017 meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in detail — saying the only thing that scares him is an Israeli attack — and said that in a separate high-level meeting, she was exposed to a plan “to identify all the prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis. They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.”
“They wanted to have a better understanding so they would know how to strike and where, so that if Israel ever dared to attack Iran, the Diaspora would have a very nasty surprise,” she told the Jewish Chronicle.
Related Story: Iran Plotting to Kill British Jews, Minister Confirms After JC Exclusive
