Manssor Arbabsiar

Manssor Arbabsiar is an Iranian-American used by the IRGC-Quds Force as a proxy in the 2011 plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir in Washington DC. A naturalised US citizen living in Texas, Arbabsiar was recruited by his cousin — Gholam Shakuri, an IRGC-QF officer — and directed to hire a Mexican drug cartel hitman to kill the ambassador. Unbeknownst to Arbabsiar, the alleged hitman was a DEA informant. Arbabsiar was arrested in October 2011 after wiring $100,000 to what he believed was the cartel. He pleaded guilty in October 2012 and was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. His case documents the IRGC-QF practice of using diaspora proxies — including individuals with no formal intelligence training — for assassination operations on US soil.