The arrests of three suspected hitmen accused of killing a B.C. Sikh leader highlight an emerging security problem: foreign intelligence services are contracting their dirty work to the criminal underworld.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar: How arrests will impact Canada-India tensions
Ryan allegedly recruited another Canadian Hell’s Angels affiliate, Adam Richard Pearson, to carry out the murders. Both Ryan and Pearson were arrested for unrelated crimes before the killing occurred.
The head of the network, Iranian drug trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti, operates at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and has targeted other dissidents, according to the U.S. Treasury.
In 2020, Zindashti members abducted a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, Habib Chaab, and smuggled him to Iran where he was tortured. The MOIS sponsored the operation, the U.S. said.
The Zindashti network was also involved in the assassinations in Istanbul of regime critics Mas’ud Vardanjani in 2019 and British-Iranian Saeed Karimian, who owned GEM TV, in 2017.
Intelligence summaries tabled at Canada’s foreign interference commission alleged that Indian officials have increasingly relied on “proxies” in Canada to conduct activities.
The tactic “obfuscates any explicit link” between the Indian government and its foreign interference activities, according to the intelligence summaries.
“Proxies liaise and work with Indian intelligence officials in India and Canada, taking both explicit and implicit direction from them.”
Source: