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.
