Feds charge 4 in Iran plot to kidnap US journalist, 4 others

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : Khazein, it said, researched travel routes from the journalist's residence to a waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn and the location of the journalist's residence relative to Venezuela and Tehran.
47% : Iran Middle East Manhattan
46% : An Iranian intelligence officer and three alleged members of an Iranian intelligence network have been charged in Manhattan with plotting to lure a U.S. journalist and human rights activist from New York to Iran, authorities said Tuesday.
44% : The indictment alleged that the government of Iran in 2018 tried to lure the journalist to a third country so a capture would be possible, even offering money to the journalist's relatives to try to make it possible.
44% : According to the indictment, Sadeghi researched a service offering military-style speedboats that could perform a maritime evacuation out of New York City that would ultimately reach Venezuela, whose de facto government has friendly relations with Iran.
43% : The rest of the defendants are fugitives believed to be based in Iran, authorities said.
42% : An indictment in Manhattan federal court alleges that the plot was part of a wider plan to lure three individuals in Canada and a fifth person in the United Kingdom to Iran.
41% : The indictment said Bahadorifar, 46, originally from Iran, works at a California department store.
40% : "We allege a group, backed by the Iranian government, conspired to kidnap a U.S. based journalist here on our soil and forcibly return her to Iran.
40% : The others charged in the kidnapping plot were identified as Mahmoud Khazein, 42, Kiya Sadeghi, 35, and Omid Noori, 45, all from Iran.
39% : Although not charged in the kidnapping plot, Niloufar Bahadorifar, also known as Nellie, was arrested July 1 in California on charges that she has provided U.S. financial and other services to Iranian residents and entities and some financial services supported the plot and violated sanctions against Iran, according to a release.
36% : According to the indictment, all of the targeted victims had been critical of Iran, including the New Yorker, a Brooklyn resident described as a journalist, author and human rights activist who has publicized the government of Iran's human rights abuses.
36% : U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said the four defendants charged in the kidnapping plot "monitored and planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin who has been critical of the regime's autocracy, and to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim's fate would have been uncertain at best."

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