Another Agent of Iran’s Regime Operating Against MEK in Albania Arrested

Written by
Mansoureh Galestan

Albanian Police
Albanian police announced on Saturday they had arrested an agent of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) for spying on members of the Iranian opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), in Ashraf 3, Albania. This recent arrest renders the necessity of firm action against the mullahs’ agents in all European countries.

The Iranian Resistance identified the individual as Bijan Pooladrag, whom the MEK had expelled in September 2019.

According to an Albanian police statement, the individual had been arrested for “illegal interception of computer data” and “interference in computer systems, interference in computer data” as well as “misuse of equipment.” According to this statement, Pooladrag has committed the crimes mentioned above “through various actions,” and “(he) communicated through a network messaging application, which he used by linking it to the mobile phone numbers” to listen and track them.

In this regard, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Security and Counterterrorism Committee, in a statement on October 11, wrote: “Several MOIS agents live in Albania. The MEK had previously exposed them and provided their records to the relevant authorities, including Ehsan Bidi, Daniel Kasraei, Gholamreza Shekari, Gholam Ali Mirzaei, and Hassan Heyrani.”

The Iranian regime has been using individuals expelled from the MEK or those who could not continue the struggle for freedom to gather information about the MEK for planning terrorist attacks. These MOIS agents also operate under the banner of the so-called “former MEK members” to demonize the Iranian Resistance, thus, justifying the regime’s subsequent terrorist attacks.

The regime uses many of its so-called “friendly” journalists to push the mullahs’ false narratives about the Iranian Resistance and all the baseless allegations against the MEK, already rejected by high courts in the U.S. and EU, under the banner of “Iran experts.” To further accredit their hit pieces, they use MOIS “current members,” disguised as the MEK’s “former members.”

 

An example of mullahs’ failed demonization campaign
Both in March 2019 and July 2020, German courts handed down judgments upholding challenges the NCRI had brought against two “credible” German media, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that had published hit-pieces demonizing the MEK.
In both cases, the courts condemned these two media outlets for disseminating false information, originating from the MOIS and its members, and ordered them to remove these baseless allegations.

The recent arrest of another MOIS operative in Albania once again discredits those regime agents who the mullahs’ apologists try to promote as “former members” of the MEK.

How mullahs’ agents facilitate terrorism?
The Iranian regime has been oppressing its dissidents both inside and outside Iran. The long list of the mullahs’ political assassinations and acts of terrorism, including the foiled bomb plot against the NCRI’s annual “Free Iran” gathering in 2018 in France, show the regime will never cease its terrorist operations. To facilitate its assassinations or implement them, the regime uses its embassies as a nest for its spies, such as Pooladrag, and Heyrani, and its mercenaries, such as Assadollah Assadi, the regime’s diplomat-terrorist who is on trial in Belgium for the 2018 bomb plot in France. Before his arrest, the latter was the third secretary of the regime’s embassy in Vienna.

The regime’s spies are also supported by and working in connection with the mullahs’ embassies in various European countries. In this regard, the Albanian government expelled the regime’s ambassador to Albania and several other diplomats and affiliates on different occasions for their involvement in terrorist activities against the MEK. These activities include the foiled bomb plot against the MEK’s Persian New Year gathering in Albania in March 2018.

In a statement on August 10, the NCRI wrote: “After the Government of Albania expelled Mohammad Ali Arz Peyma and Ahmad Hosseini Alast, two of the clerical regime’s diplomat-terrorists, in January 2020, and exerted greater vigilance regarding the activities of the mullahs’ embassy, the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the terrorist Quds Forces are carrying out their activities and communications with their agents indirectly from Tehran, the Balkans and Western European countries.”

The latest arrest of another MOIS agent reiterates the need to prosecute and expel the intelligence and Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) agents from Europe, especially Iran regime’s embassies which are active in pursuing the regime’s terror plots in European countries.