By Staff Writer

In November 2024, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) exposed an Iranian plot to assassinate former President Donald Trump — a scheme ordered by Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as revenge for the killing of their commander, General Qassem Soleimani, on 03 January 2020 during a visit to Baghdad.

Previously, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and IRGC commanders had repeatedly promised that “those who ordered and carried out” Soleimani’s killing — namely President Trump and his top national security officials — “should be punished”. Over the following years, Iranian media and officials issued graphic reminders of this pledge: Tehran released videos depicting the future gruesome deaths of President Trump and other US leaders, pushed for their arrest via Interpol, and made menacing statements promising revenge. For example, in early 2021, Khamenei’s official Twitter account posted an image of a golfer resembling President Trump under a drone’s shadow with the caption “Revenge is certain”.

In January 2022, following a national animation contest, Khamenei posted an animation on his website that showed a robot targeting Trump with a drone strike on a golf course — a blunt call for retribution on the second anniversary of Soleimani’s death. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that same week encouraged a suicide bombing of President Trump, warning, “Muslims will take our martyr’s revenge.”

Iran’s military leaders echoed these threats. Soleimani’s successor as Quds Force commander, Esmail Qaani, hinted that those involved in the assassination should “learn the secretive life of Salman Rushdie” — i.e. live in hiding — because Iran “will avenge” Soleimani’s blood. By 2023, IRGC Aerospace Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh openly declared on state TV: “God willing, we will kill Trump, Pompeo, [Gen. Frank] McKenzie, and the military commanders who ordered [Soleimani’s assassination].” This marked a remarkable shift — for decades, Iran’s overseas operations only targeted exiled dissidents, but since 2020, Tehran has directed its assassins towards high-profile American political and military leaders.

In mid-2020, Iranian authorities issued an arrest warrant for President Trump and dozens of US officials, charging them with “murder and terrorism” over Soleimani’s death. The regime formally requested Interpol’s help to arrest US officials (which was rebuffed as a political matter). Iran later imposed sanctions on President Trump and 50 other US officials involved in the strike, with Tehran’s leaders insisting that revenge “will certainly happen at the right time”. Meanwhile, the IRGC publicly maintained that its retaliation would be “decisive, serious and real.” IRGC Commander Hossein Salami, in September 2020, vowed, “We will hit the people who directly and indirectly played a role in the martyrdom of [Soleimani],” dismissing reports of a foiled Iranian plot against a US ambassador as misdirection — “We won’t do verbal fights… we leave everything to the field of action.”

Around the same time, two New York men were arrested for helping surveil a prominent Iranian-American dissident — journalist Masih Alinejad — as part of a foiled IRGC-linked murder plot. These incidents form part of a broader pattern of global terrorism and assassinations: Iranian operatives targeting exiled dissidents and, since 2020, senior former and serving US officials.

Behind the hit squads, assassins and covert agents lies an unassuming enabler: Iran’s second-largest mobile telecom and digital company, Irancell.

Investigative findings — from lawsuits, sanctions, and intelligence reports — reveal how Iran’s armed forces, especially the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI), have weaponised Irancell’s infrastructure and revenues to surveil opponents and support assassination plots abroad. This report explores Irancell’s ownership ties to the regime, its built-in surveillance apparatus, and its deep collaboration with Iran’s intelligence agencies — all of which enable Tehran’s targeted assassinations beyond its borders.

Irancell’s ownership: In the grip of the IRGC and supreme leader

On paper, MTN-Irancell is a joint venture between South Africa’s MTN Group (49% stake) and an Iranian consortium (51%). In reality, that 51% majority is controlled by entities tied to Iran’s security apparatus. When Irancell was founded in the mid-2000s, Iran required foreign telecom investors to partner with local companies. MTN’s chosen partners were telling: Sairan, an electronics firm owned by Iran’s Ministry of Defence, and Bonyad Mostazafan, a powerful foundation under the Supreme Leader’s control. Together they formed Irancell’s Iranian holding, also called the Iran Electronic Development Company (IEDC). According to a US legal complaint, substantiated by former MTN executives, Bonyad Mostazafan and Iran Electronics Industries (Sairan’s parent organisation) own 51% of Irancell and serve as fronts for the IRGC.

In effect, Irancell is a core asset within the IRGC’s portfolio of companies in Iran. An analysis of Iran’s telecom sector found that while the largest mobile operator (Hamrah Aval) is state-owned, the second-largest, MTN-Irancell, “is owned by Bonyad Mostazafan,” a sprawling trust controlled by the Supreme Leader and “affiliated with the IRGC” and the Iranian Ministry of Defence. The IRGC, a branch of Iran’s armed forces, has built a vast business empire across Iran’s economy — from oil and construction to banking and telecom. Irancell’s creation came amid this economic expansion. In fact, internal corporate records and court testimony suggest MTN secured the Irancell licence by courting Iranian officials with promises that aligned with IRGC interests, including offers to help Tehran obtain critical military equipment like drones and diplomatic support for Iran’s nuclear programme.

The bottom line: Irancell’s majority ownership traces back to the very heart of the regime — the Supreme Leader’s patronage network and the defence and intelligence establishment. This means Iran’s security organs have had leverage over Irancell’s operations from day one, installing loyalists and shaping policies behind the scenes. A US lawsuit alleges that Irancell’s own employees and agents effectively work as operatives for the IRGC, including its elite Qods Force unit. While that claim awaits trial, there is little doubt that Irancell answers to the regime. As one expert dryly noted, any telecom firm operating in Iran “almost by default, cooperates with the IRGC and its affiliates.”

Built-in surveillance: Legal duties and monitoring capabilities

It is not only ownership that binds Irancell to Iran’s security agencies — it’s also the law. Under Iranian regulations, all telecom operators must provide the government’s Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) with direct, real-time access to their systems for “legal intercept” purposes. In practice, this means Irancell’s networks are wired for government surveillance. Authorities can retrieve subscriber information, monitor calls and messages, and even alter or cut off services at will. Any change to a customer’s mobile account — from a new SIM registration to adding a service — must be approved through an API link to the CRA before being activated. This level of direct state integration is extremely rare in the modern telecom industry. Iran’s centralised intercept system allows authorities to “directly monitor, intercept, redirect, degrade or deny all Iranians’ mobile communications,” according to Citizen Lab researchers who analysed leaked internal documents.

For MTN-Irancell, compliance with such surveillance mandates isn’t optional — it’s a core part of its operating environment. The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology oversees telecom infrastructure, but Iran’s intelligence services (like IRGC Intelligence and MOI) are widely believed to be listening in on conversations. Human rights groups have documented numerous cases of the Iranian government tracking down and arresting critics by monitoring their phone calls or internet use. During protest waves and political crises, this surveillance intensifies. Irancell and other providers routinely throttle internet speeds or shut down networks on state orders — as seen in recent protests and during the war with Israel — to stifle dissent. All the while, security agencies trawl communications metadata to map and target dissidents’ networks.

Concrete examples illustrate how deeply enmeshed Irancell is in Iran’s surveillance state. Leaked records from 2008 show that Irancell awarded a contract to manage its subscriber data centre to a consortium that included Sairan (the Defence Ministry-owned firm) and Bonyad Mostazafan. An MTN executive testified that the Iranian side insisted on this arrangement: the foreign vendor could only run Irancell’s data centre if it partnered with those two regime-controlled entities. The result was a new company, Arya Hamrah, created to “camouflage” the procurement of restricted technologies and to ensure Iranian authorities had unfettered access to Irancell’s customer data. In short, the regime built backdoors into Irancell from its inception, embedding its agents and systems to watch users.

Through these technical and legal means, Irancell effectively functions as an arm of Iran’s domestic intelligence apparatus. Every phone call or text on its network can be intercepted. Every SIM card is effectively registered with authorities. This gives the IRGC and MOI a powerful tool to monitor and target dissidents at home — and keep tabs on those abroad. For instance, exiled activists often still communicate with family in Iran by phone. Those calls, routed via Irancell or its peers, can be tapped to glean the activist’s contacts, whereabouts, and travel plans. As a 2025 analysis by the Associated Press noted, “Mobile phones and landlines ultimately are overseen by Iran’s ICT Ministry… but the country’s intelligence services have long been believed to be monitoring conversations.” In Iran, privacy is illusory — especially if you are deemed an “enemy of the state.”

Cooperation with intelligence: Irancell as a regime asset

Given Irancell’s ownership and built-in surveillance, it’s no surprise that Iran’s intelligence agencies treat the company as an extension of themselves. Both the IRGC’s Intelligence Organisation (IRGC-IO) and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) exploit telecom data for their operations. For nearly four decades, the MOI and other Iranian agencies have surveilled, abducted, and murdered dissidents, under hardline and reformist governments alike. What has changed in recent years is the sophistication of the technology at their disposal — with MTN-Irancell’s modern telecom systems providing a rich source of signals intelligence.

Inside Iran, IRGC-IO officers and MOI agents can obtain real-time location data, call records, and personal details of any Irancell subscriber with a few keystrokes. This has been used to hunt down activists and journalists. During the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, for example, security forces reportedly used mobile data to identify protest coordinators and track their movements. “The IRGC-IO’s direct role in the repression of protests and arrest of dissidents” is well documented, notes the US Treasury. Senior IRGC-IO officials sanctioned by the US in 2023 were involved in interrogating detainees and targeting civil society — even planning “assassination plots against journalists, Israeli citizens, and others deemed enemies of Iran,” according to Treasury. Such plots often rely on surveillance to select targets and guide hit teams. And much of that surveillance flows from Iran’s telecom networks.

It appears that Irancell’s staff themselves are sometimes co-opted by intelligence services. The 2022 US lawsuit against MTN-Irancell alleges that the company operated as a front for the IRGC’s Qods Force – with Irancell employees and agents effectively working on IRGC projects. In one instance, MTN’s former Iran executive, Chris Kilowan, described how Irancell and its Iranian partners created shell companies to illicitly procure US-made tech equipment for the network. Those procurement channels doubled as intelligence cut-outs, obtaining embargoed American hardware (Cisco routers, HP and Sun servers, etc.) which ultimately benefited the IRGC’s military capabilities. Documents show Irancell explicitly sought “embargo items” and had an understanding with Huawei (its contractor) to manage those covert imports. In essence, Irancell’s infrastructure buildout became entwined with Iran’s clandestine acquisition of technology, guided by the regime’s security priorities.

Moreover, the profits from Irancell’s success have not simply lined the South African shareholders’ pockets with billions of dollars paid offshore including to President Ramaphosa and other ANC leaders– they have helped fund Iran’s security operations. During its rapid growth, Irancell has become one of the most valuable cash cows for the Iranian regime. According to a credible IRGC defector, Irancell is the “largest or second-largest source of cash flow” among all IRGC front companies, funnelling about $500 million per year to the IRGC for its terror operations – over $10 billion during the term of the MTN-Irancell joint venture. These funds, collected from millions of Iranians’ phone bills and data top-ups, bolstered the IRGC’s budget just as it was expanding its activities abroad from 2005 onwards. Notably, that was the period when the IRGC (through its Qods Force) armed and directed proxy militias in Iraq and Afghanistan. American service members were killed and injured by hundreds of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) financed and supplied by IRGC networks. At least four different US lawsuits now argue that Irancell’s revenue helped underwrite those terrorist attacks. In a precedent-setting decision in 2023, a US federal judge allowed Anti-Terrorism Act claims to proceed against MTN Group, with plaintiffs asserting that MTN-Irancell “facilitated funding and support for Iranian-sponsored terrorism” that killed or maimed Americans. MTN insists it has “not been found complicit in anything” and is contesting the allegations.

These legal battles highlights a stark reality: Iran’s regime has harnessed Irancell’s finances to support its terrorism abroad, blurring the line between commerce, terrorism, and assassinations. “The IRGC controls a business empire as well as elite armed and intelligence forces,” Reuters noted in a report on the IRGC’s plot to assassinate former Secretary John Bolton, and the IRGC is accused of using that empire to run a “global terrorist campaign.” Telecommunications and digital solutions are a lucrative part of that empire. Every call intercepted, every rial of profit – it all feeds the same apparatus that plans kidnappings and killings overseas.

From phone lines to hit lists: Irancell’s role in plots abroad

Armed with surveillance data and flush with funding, Iran’s security services have grown increasingly brazen in targeting enemies on foreign soil. In the past decade, a series of foiled and failed assassination plots across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America have been tied back to Tehran. Irancell’s contributions to these plots are behind the scenes – facilitating communication and reconnaissance – but they are critical to the kill chain.

Consider the case of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat arrested in 2018 for plotting to bomb an opposition rally near Paris. Assadi was no rogue agent; European intelligence concluded he acted on orders from Tehran, and France publicly blamed Iran’s Intelligence Ministry (MOI) for the plot. The French government expelled an Iranian diplomat in protest, and in 2021 Assadi was convicted and sentenced by a Belgian court for attempted terrorism. European authorities revealed that Assadi had been Iran’s intelligence station chief in Vienna, coordinating a network of operatives. Such a complex plot – involving smuggling explosives across borders and selecting a target (a gathering of exiled dissidents) – drew on Iran’s electronic surveillance capabilities. If any conspirators in Iran discussed the plan by phone, those communications would have been monitored via Irancell and passed to MOI handlers. European investigators noted that Assadi himself warned of retaliation by unidentified groups if he was punished, underscoring the organised nature of these operations.

Iran’s terrorism is global. In 2017, Kuwaiti authorities dismantled an IRGC-linked terror cell; in 2018, Denmark foiled an IRGC plot to kill an Arab-Iranian dissident on its soil. And in 2020, as US-Iran tensions soared, the IRGC’s Qods Force shifted its focus to high-profile American targets. 

In September 2020 Politico reported an alarming US intelligence finding: Iran was “weighing an assassination attempt” against Lana Marks, the US Ambassador appointed by President Trump to South Africa. According to a credible defector from the IRGC, Marks, a friend of President Trump, was seen as a vulnerable target on “friendly soil” in South Africa as a country where Iran already has extensive established clandestine networks. In addition, the defector alleges that MTN-Irancell had a back door into MTN South Africa that enabled the IRGC to watch Ambassador Mark’s every move 24/7 for targeting purposes. In the event the US disrupted the planned assassination operation. The CIA circulated the intelligence in its classified World Intelligence Review (WIRe) ensuring senior US officials and lawmakers were aware of the plot. On September 14, 2020 President Trump deterred the plot by tweeting “Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude.”

A chilling US Justice Department complaint in August 2022 charged Shahram Poursafi, an IRGC member, with plotting to murder John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Trump. Poursafi, operating from Tehran, allegedly tried to hire hitmen in the US, offering $300,000 for Bolton’s assassination. He even hinted at a “second job” for a $1 million fee; US officials believe this referred to targeting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Washington Post reported on the 22^nd of June 2025 that the IRCG nearly succeeded to assassinate Secretary Pompeo in 2022 while he was staying at a hotel in Paris. 

By late 2024, another IRGC-linked plot came to light: Farhad Shakeri, described as a Revolutionary Guard asset in Tehran, was indicted for scouting a plan to kill Donald Trump while Trump was out of office.

These IRGC-directed schemes rely on information dominance provided by MTN-Irancell. The operatives need to know the whereabouts and routines of their far-flung targets. While some intelligence is gathered via human spies, telecom surveillance and cyber espionage are key tools for targeting. For instance, in the Bolton case, Poursafi communicated with a would-be assassin over encrypted messaging apps developed by Irancell – and arranging those connections drew on Tehran’s surveillance of Bolton’s public engagements and the monitoring of US communications in Iran. In the Alinejad case in New York, the FBI discovered that Iranian agents had hired private investigators under false pretences to watch the journalist, after earlier attempts to kidnap her had failed. How did they zero in on Alinejad? The monitoring of her family’s calls to Iran and hacking of messaging apps tipped off Iranian intelligence to her Brooklyn residence and activities. Indeed, Iran’s IRGC Intelligence Organisation has experience in “arranging logistics” for such operations, as the US Treasury noted when sanctioning an IRGC-IO deputy who helped coordinate plots against journalists and activists abroad.

In sum, MTN-Irancell’s networks provide the eyes and ears for Iran’s murderous hit squads. They enable the regime to identify dissidents who thought they’d found refuge abroad, track their contacts, and intercept communications that might reveal vulnerabilities. And thanks to Irancell’s profitable partnership with MTN, the same networks generate billions of dollars that pay for the assassins’ training, travel, and weapons. It’s a self-reinforcing system: surveillance feeds targeting, and revenue feeds operations.

Western pushback: Sanctions and legal scrutiny

The revelation of Iran’s telecom-enabled terror infrastructure has prompted growing alarm among Western governments and lawmakers. US officials have moved to penalise the Iranian entities and individuals involved. The IRGC as a whole is designated as a terrorist organisation, and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation (IRGC-IO) was recently sanctioned for its role in hostage-taking and repressing dissent. Notably, the IRGC-IO’s chief, Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, was singled out for overseeing crackdowns on protesters and the arrest of dual nationals – actions that heavily depend on electronic surveillance. The Ministry of Intelligence (MOI), too, was sanctioned by the US in 2022 after Iranian cyberattacks on Albania and the attempted kidnapping of dissidents, putting MOI officials on notice that their assets and travel are restricted.

Crucially, Iran’s use of MTN-Irancell to support terrorism has invited legal action beyond traditional sanctions. Families of American soldiers killed by Iran-backed militias have turned to US courts, suing MTN Group for knowingly doing business with IRGC fronts. Their argument: MTN’s investment in Irancell “financed deadly terrorist attacks” in Iraq and Afghanistan by channelling money and technology to the IRGC’s proxy networks. In April 2025, scholars noted these cases “put multinationals in peril” for abetting rogue regimes. One federal court’s historic ruling allowed the lawsuit against MTN to advance into discovery – a significant step in holding a corporation accountable for terror sponsorship. This has drawn high-level political attention. US Congresswoman Elise Stefanik warned that American investors in MTN (through its stock listing) were “financially propping up a company complicit in funding terrorism”, citing Irancell’s links to IRGC activities that killed US citizens. She urged cutting off MTN’s access to US capital markets until investigations conclude.

Conclusion: A cautionary tale about tech for terror

The story of Irancell is a stark case study in how an authoritarian regime can hijack modern telecommunications and a digital platform to operate terrorism globally. A mobile phone company – something that in most countries is just a mundane business – has, in Iran, become an intelligence platform and a piggy bank for terrorists and assassins. Through MTN-Irancell, Iran’s rulers have eyes on millions of citizens at home and a reach that extends abroad to target dissidents’ living rooms and even a former US president’s rally stage.

For the general public, this is a reminder that in Iran, the devices that connect people also expose them. Every Iranian who uses a service like Irancell is inadvertently contributing data and revenue to a system that the regime can marshal against its perceived enemies. For policymakers and security analysts, Irancell’s tale underscores the importance of looking beyond Iran’s overt military and nuclear activities, and into the less obvious enablers of its power. Financial sanctions and diplomatic isolation may bite, but as long as Tehran can rely on ostensibly civilian enterprises like a telecom firm to surveil opponents and generate cash, it will find ways to export its repression and terrorism.

Stopping this cycle is no simple task. It may require a combination of measures: stricter enforcement of sanctions on tech transfers, closer scrutiny of investors who finance regime-controlled companies, and support for Iranians trying to build alternative, secure communications channels. International companies, too, face a reckoning – as seen by MTN’s legal troubles – that doing business in Iran’s lucrative market can carry ethical and even legal liability if that business empowers the IRGC or MOI.

In the end, shining a light on MTN-Irancell’s role is a first step. As Iran’s intelligence operatives continue to plot in far-flung locales – from the streets of New York to the suburbs of Paris – the international community must recognise that these plots do not emerge from a vacuum. They are backed by the full apparatus of a state, fuelled by resources drawn from its economy and people. And in the case of Iran, every phone call intercepted and every rial earned by companies like Irancell can become part of the arsenal the regime uses to silence, subdue, or eliminate those who stand in its way. These assassins have to be stopped.

Irancell was approached for comment but did not reply.