Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is intensifying efforts to recruit dissidents in Germany as informants by blackmailing their relatives back home, according to an investigation by the Die Welt newspaper.
The report details the chain of events and techniques agents use through social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp to turn exiles into “disposable informants” in espionage parlance.
The recruitment campaign typically begins with agents seizing a relative’s phone in Iran to access contacts abroad. They then pressure the family and escalate to threatening to sabotage the exile’s asylum case in Germany.
Recruited informants are asked to attend opposition rallies and gatherings, identifying active participants.
In one case documented by Die Welt, Javid Navari, a 48-year-old asylum seeker from Shiraz living in Weimar with his family, was contacted via WhatsApp by an agent using the alias “Mahdi.”
The agent threatened Navari’s relatives in Iran and demanded information about opposition protests in Germany and Europe, including names and contacts of the dissidents.
Die Welt identified “Mahdi” as an active Iranian intelligence operative who has used the same number under multiple pseudonyms in at least five separate cases. His social media profiles present him as a real estate broker.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told the paper it has recorded 97 similar cases in 2025 alone, describing an unprecedented escalation.
The Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) group, which is banned in Iran, is the largest component of the NCRI whose leaders are based in Paris.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) confirmed to Die Welt a sharp rise in Iranian espionage activities, adding that the entire diaspora opposition is targeted, with groups like the NCRI particularly exposed.
Victims often face threats of losing asylum status if they refuse cooperation or report the contacts, and many avoid going to police due to fear of being labeled regime collaborators, the report added.
The campaign coincides with a sharp rise in executions in Iran. Over 1,000 people have been put to death in the first nine months of 2025, most of them over alleged drug offenses.
New laws have expanded the definition of espionage to include contact with foreign or exiled media introduced after a 12-day war with Israel and the United States in June.
The over 3,000-page $900 billion plus National Defense Authorization Act outlines US military priorities around the globe. A compromise version of the proposed legislation emerged on Sunday.
It contains provisions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq passed by Congress to confront US foe Saddam Hussein, in a win for the legislative branch's powers to declare war which remain a flashpoint.
According to the text, no more than half of the funds allocated for Iraq's military can be delivered until the Secretary of Defense submits to Congress a verification that Baghdad has implemented "credible steps" to rein in Tehran-backed militias.
These include steps "to reduce the operational capacity of Iran-aligned militia groups not integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces," moves to strengthen the authority of the Iraqi Prime Minister as commander in chief of the security forces.
It further requires Iraq to "investigate and hold accountable members of militias or members of security forces operating outside the formal chain of command who engage in attacks on United States or Iraqi personnel or otherwise act in an illegal or destabilizing manner."
The NDAA allows for a waiver of 180 days if the Secretary of Defense invokes national security reasons.
Recent elections
Emerging from years of civil war which followed a US invasion in 2003, Baghdad is caught between the competing influence of Tehran and Washington.
Tehran-aligned groups such as the Popular Mobilization Forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah fielded candidates in parliamentary polls last month, rebranding themselves as civilian organizations even as their armed presence persists.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who has plied a middle course between the two foreign rivals vying over the future of the war-battered Arab nation, looks set to stay in office after months of bargaining wraps up.
He has taken few steps to defang the armed groups even as overall security nationwide has improved, earning criticism from hawks in Washington.
'Make Iraq Great Again'
"It does not matter who wins elections or forms a government, as the entire country is deeply infiltrated by Iran," Republican Congressman Joe Wilson said on Tuesday.
"Congress will not continue to issue blank checks forever," he added in the post on X. Baghdad, he said, "should take sovereign decisions on behalf of their own people rather than obeying the dictates of Iran and its puppet militias and kleptocrats."
The administration of US President Donald Trump has stepped up sanctions on Iraqi people and entities it accuses of helping enrich Tehran, and his special envoy to Baghdad Mark Savaya has vowed to "Make Iraq Great Again."
Hamstrung by US and international sanctions, Iran shares long historical and religious ties with parts of Iraq and views it as a valuable conduit for conducting international business.
Tehran armed and funded the militias which helped the country defeat Islamic State militants but which lingered after their defeat and continue to exert a strong influence over the security forces and government.
