Feds bring charges in Iranian murder-for-hire plot to assassinate Trump

A fugitive Iranian government operative is accused of hiring a pair of New Yorkers he met in prison to carry out an assassination plot against a critic of the regime, and allegedly admitted to FBI agents that he’d also been tasked with finding a hit squad to kill President-elect Donald Trump.

Farhad Shakeri, 51, claimed he was asked in September by regime officials to “put aside his other efforts... and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan federal court.

Shakeri countered that this would cost a “huge” amount of money, to which his regime contact replied, “[W]e have already spent a lot of money .. . [s]o the money’s not an issue.” Shakeri said he was given a deadline of mid-October.

The complaint also reveals that, in a separate assassination plot, Shakeri was told by his Iranian government contacts to locate a hitman capable of surveilling, then murdering, an unnamed journalist in the U.S. It says Shakeri, an Afghani national and former New York resident, offered $100,000 to two men, Carlisle “Pop” Rivera, 49, and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, while serving a 14-year sentence for robbery.

Rivera and Loadholt were arrested Thursday in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and remain detained pending trial on charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering conspiracy. Shakeri, who is believed to be in Iran and out of US law enforcement’s reach, faces the same charges as Rivera and Loadholt, plus conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Government of Iran.

The Iranian government “engages in these activities to silence dissidents, and, in the case of political enemies, to seek revenge and sow discord,” the complaint states.

It also says the regime was out to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike during the Trump administration.

According to the complaint, Shakeri — who spoke with the FBI five times by phone between September 30 and November 7, from Iran — told federal agents he worked in the oil and gas business and had been recruited by a senior member of the the regime’s feared Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After learning that Shakeri had previously lived in New York City, the IRGC officer, who told Shakeri his name was Majid Soleimani, asked him about “investigating” a reporter in Brooklyn, identified in the complaint as Victim-1. The journalist, who identified herself on social media as Masih Alinejad, has been targeted by Tehran for years.

Shakeri told the FBI that he had met with Soleimani about a dozen times at restaurants around Tehran, and that Soleimani demanded he leave his phone outside when they got together, the complaint states. He said Soleimani set up the meetings through intermediaries, so there would be no record of any communication between them, according to the complaint.

Soleimani, who already seemed to have a plethora of information about Victim-1’s whereabouts, told Shakeri he’d pay $1.5 million to have her killed, “nighttime, daytime, anywhere.” (Shakeri told the FBI he agreed to speak with them in an attempt to help get a sentence reduction for an associate jailed in the US.)

In December 2023, Shakeri contacted Rivera and Loadholt, who overlapped with Shakeri behind bars while they served time for manslaughter and murder, about the job. They put the reporter under surveillance, but things broke down last August over Shakeri’s financial promises which had not yet materialized.

"Yo wtf,” Loadholt wrote to Rivera after yet another payment didn’t come through, according to the complaint. "... I’m screaming my head off ryt now[.]

"Me too," Rivera replied.

“I’m so frustrated son I’m like ready to jump out the window," Loadholt texted back.

In his talks with the FBI, Shakeri said Soleimani had also asked him to surveil two Jewish businesspeople in New York City, who are not identified in court records, and to engage a death squad to carry out a mass shooting of Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

On October 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack on Israeli civilians, Shakeri was told to provide an operational plan to kill Donald Trump within seven days, the complaint states. If he couldn’t do it within that timeframe, according to Shakeri, his IRGC handlers told him to wait until after the election. If Trump lost, as many expected, “it would be easier to assassinate [him],” Shakeri said, according to the complaint.

“During the interview, Shakeri claimed he did not intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within the timeframe set by the IRGC,” it says.

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organization — has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil and that simply won’t be tolerated. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, their deadly schemes were disrupted,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “We’re committed to using the full resources of the FBI to protect our citizens from Iran or any other adversary who targets Americans.”

Editor’s Note: The headline on this article was updated to clarify that only one person was implicated in the alleged plot against Trump.