Thread: Iranian Cousins Accused in Assassination Plot, TX. & Mex

More Details About Iranian Cousins Accused in Assassination Plot

Reported by: Farrah Fazal
Reported by: Jordan Williams
Last Update: 5:54 pm

Federal officials say an assassination attempt on a Saudi ambassador in the United States was planned right here in South Texas and in Reynosa.

Two cousins, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, and a group of Iranians came up with a plan to kill Saudi ambassador Adel al Jubair. One of them met a DEA informant in Reynosa.

We started digging into Arbabsiar's background and here's what we found out. He has dual citizenship; he is an American and an Iranian. He has a Texas driver's license and lives in Round Rock. His roommate may be a man from Mexico.

Federal prosecutors say Arbabsiar met twice in July with a DEA informant in Reynosa. He thought the informant was a Zeta Cartel member. Investigators say he negotiated a $1.5 million payment for the assassination of the Saudi ambassador. He didn't know he was putting the money in an FBI undercover bank account.

“This case illustrates we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant, a world where individuals from one country sought to conspire with a drug cartel in another country to assassinate a foreign official on U.S. soil. And though it reads like a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost,â€

Suspect in alleged Iranian terrorism plot had key connections

By Greg Miller and Julie Tate,

The alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States seemed as convoluted as it was coldblooded, involving an effort by the Iranian government to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill the envoy in Washington.

But the main suspect in the case, a 56-year-old Iranian American named Mansour Arbabsiar, was peculiarly positioned to advance such an elaborate plot, according to U.S. officials and court filings.

The Justice Department accused elements of the Iranian government of being involved in a plot to assassinate Adel A. al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States.

Arbabsiar spent years in the United States but had connections with elements in Iran’s military, including a “cousinâ€