How Iran pays mafia hitmen to carry out assassinations in Europe
Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish politician, was shot in the face while walking home from the park. Such tactics are part of Tehran’s state terrorism, he says
THE SUNDAY TIMES | Adam Sage | May 27, 2025
As the hitman prepared to pull the trigger, Alejo Vidal-Quadras jerked his head back in an instinctive movement that saved his life.
The bullet was intended for the prominent right-wing Spanish politician’s neck. “But it went in here,” said Vidal-Quadras, pointing to one side of his jaw. “And it came out there,” he added, pointing to the other. Vidal-Quadras, a former vice-president of the European parliament, was in Paris to tell French MPs that he had fallen victim to an Iranian regime that is subcontracting assassinations to European criminal networks.
In his case, investigators in Spain, the Netherlands and France suspect that the shooting in Madrid in November 2023 was ordered by Tehran and carried out by the Mocro mafia, a powerful Dutch drug network. “The Iranian regime is paying criminal networks to carry out attacks,” Vidal-Quadras told journalists before his meeting with MPs. “They are recruiting mafia organizations to do their work for them.”
The site of the murder attempt on Vidal-Quadras
He said the killers hired by Iran had no ideological links to the country’s ayatollahs, and wee only interested in money. “They are professional criminals,” he said. “It is just another job to them.” At least eight people have been arrested in connection with his attempted murder, including Mehrez Ayari, a French-Tunisian who grew up in the Paris suburbs. Ayari has convictions for drug trafficking, swindling, extortion, armed robbery, forgery, violence and death threats, according to Le Monde.
The newspaper said he was also wanted for questioning in France in connection with what is known as the “sunflower case” — the murder of a small-time drug trafficker whose body was found in a field of sunflowers north of Paris in August 2022. French investigators believe Ayari was in contact with the Mocro mafia. According to Le Monde, they found one message on his brother’s phone that talked about getting a gun in Rotterdam and another, from an unknown Dutch number, featuring a video of Vidal-Quadras.
Ayari, 38, was arrested in the Dutch city of Haarlem in 2024 as he allegedly sought to kill an Iranian activist opponent of the regime. In April, the Dutch general intelligence and security service said in its annual report: “The two assassination attempts [on Vidal-Quadras and the activist] fit into the method that Iran has been using for years: using criminal networks in Europe to silence supposed opponents of the regime. Based on intelligence, it is likely that Iran is responsible for the two assassination attempts.” Iran has called the claims an “absurd fabrication”.
Ayari’s lawyer also denied the accusation that his client was undertaking professional killings on behalf of Iran. The lawyer told Dutch media “there is not a single piece of evidence” linking Ayari to Tehran.
In a further development, Dutch police are offering a €50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Sami Bekal Bounouare, a Spanish-Moroccan. A police notice says he is wanted in connection with the attempted “contract killing” of the Iranian activist in Haarlem, with the “attempted assassination” of Vidal-Quadras, and with the “contract killing” in the Netherlands in 2021 of a DJ of Iraqi origin shot while walking his dog after getting into debt.
The notice says Bounouare, 27, who speaks five languages, had “mainly lived in Rotterdam in recent years” but was on the run. Spanish media say he is suspected of having masterminded the attack on Vidal-Quadras. He is thought to have left Spain a day before the shooting.
Dutch intelligence agencies are not alone in believing that Tehran is using drug networks to carry out work on its behalf. Mossad and the Swedish security service have both said they have evidence that Iran has been recruiting criminal organizations to carry out terror attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe. In the US, the FBI has said that Tehran has employed similar tactics.
Vidal-Quadras, 80, a former centre-right Spanish Popular Party MEP but also the joint founder of the populist Vox movement, which he later quit, said he was targeted because of his high-profile opposition to Iran’s Islamic regime. A supporter of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which opposes the regime, he was at the top of a blacklist of westerners placed under sanctions by Tehran in 2022.
He was shot while returning home after a walk in Retiro Park in Madrid. The hitman approached from behind, saying “Hello, sir.”
“I just moved my head and that is what saved me,” Vidal-Quadras said. He said it took him seven months to recover. There was facial reconstruction surgery, and the “post-traumatic shock, which is not very nice”.
He said: “The psychological aspect is terrible but with medical help and help from my family, I am well now.”
State terrorism was one of a number of tactics used by Iran to strike fear into western governments, he said, along with hostage-taking and the development of the nuclear bomb.
Vidal-Quadras appeared to suggest that the strategy was effective, at least as far as Spain’s Socialist government was concerned. He said there had been “no diplomatic or political reaction” in Madrid to his attempted assassination. “The government has not opened its mouth.”
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/iran-mafia-assassinations-europe-sg2k833v9
The attack plot in London. 5/7/2025
• Fourth man arrested in investigation linked to Iran
