By Noureddine Omar | 2025-08-29

Unit 840 of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) uses criminal networks as proxies to attack dissidents and other targets abroad, according to military expert Wael Abdul Muttalib.

He said more than 100 operations have been carried out in Europe since 1979, with an estimated half in the last five years.

Intelligence reports show these gangs increasingly enlist children as expendable operatives, who are often unaware of their ultimate handlers.

This approach allows Tehran to project power abroad while masking its hand behind layers of organized crime and youth exploitation.

Weaponizing the underworld

The regime recruits networks ranging from Sweden's violent gangs to Canada's Hells Angels.

A CNN investigation in April revealed how a 15-year-old boy from Vasteras, thinking he was on a minor errand, was arrested carrying weapons toward Israel's Stockholm embassy.

The next day, a 14-year-old fired a semi-automatic pistol nearby. Prosecutors said neither knew who had ordered the attacks.

Sweden's Security Service (SÄPO) confirmed that two notorious gangs, Foxtrot and Rumba, acted under Iranian guidance in several attacks.

Recruiters typically contact minors on encrypted apps using coded emojis -- foxes for Foxtrot, strawberries for Rumba, skulls for murder -- and lure them with cash, clothing, and status.

"Iran is using organized and violent criminal gangs to carry out serious attacks within Sweden," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned on January 12, calling for the European Union to blacklist the IRGC.

"Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies -- from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks," MI5 director Ken McCallum said.

In March, the US Treasury sanctioned the Foxtrot gang for ties to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

The gang's leader, Rawa Majid, fled to Iran in 2023 and now operates under Tehran's direction, recruited under threat of jail, according to Western intelligence.

In Canada, Iranian operatives enlisted Hells Angels member Damion Patrick John Ryan to assassinate exiles in the United States.

He worked under Iran-based narcotics trafficker Naji Sharif Zindashti, who in turn acted for MOIS, according to joint US-UK sanctions announced last year.

International pushback

Fourteen Western nations issued a joint statement on July 31 condemning Iranian operations as "violations of our sovereignty" and demanding Tehran "immediately end these illegal activities."

UK authorities said they disrupted at least 20 Iranian-backed plots since January 2022 and passed a law requiring anyone working for Iranian intelligence to register or face up to five years in prison.

British Security Minister Dan Jarvis pledged international cooperation to "bring Iranian-linked criminals to justice wherever in the world they may be."

Australia recently exposed the Iranian regime's attacks on its soil.

On August 27, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Canberra is expelling Tehran's ambassador and will designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.