Info:
The Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the primary intelligence agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a member of the Iran Intelligence Community. With a large budget and extensive organization, the MOIS is of the most powerful ministries in the Iranian government. The ministry has traditionally operated under the guidance of the Velayat-e Faqih apparatus of Ali Khamenei and answers directly to the Supreme Leader. The group has a secret budget making it very difficult to discern how large the Ministry’s operations are and to what end they are intended;
MOIS is designated by the U.S. Treasury Department pursuant to E.O. 13224 for its support to Hizballah, HAMAS and al Qa’ida;
MOIS provides financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to Hizballah, a terrorist organization designated under E.O. 13224. MOIS has participated in multiple joint projects with Hizballah in computer hacking;
MOIS provides financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to HAMAS, a terrorist group also designated under E.O. 13224;
MOIS has facilitated the movement of al Qa’ida operatives in Iran and provided them with documents, identification cards, and passports;
MOIS also provided money and weapons to al Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), a terrorist group designated under E.O. 13224, and negotiated prisoner releases of AQI operatives;
MOIS is providing support to the Syrian regime’s violent repression of dissent in Syria. MOIS, like the IRGC-QF, and the Iranian LEF, has provided financial, material, or technological support to the Syrian GID, whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13572. MOIS has provided substantial technical assistance to the Syrian GID for the purpose of assisting the Syrian regime in its violent crackdown on protesters;
The MOIS reportedly operated various prisons and prison wings throughout Iran, which did not require the Iranian government’s oversight. The most famous of these facilities was referred to as Section 209 of the Evin House of Detention in Tehran, the former prison used by the SAVAK. Section 209 was said to hold those the Iranian Government deemed national security threats, often believed to be political prisoners. MOIS is responsible for or complicit in the commission of serious human rights abuses against the Iranian people since June 12, 2009. MOIS agents are responsible for the beatings, sexual abuse, prolonged interrogations, and coerced confessions of prisoners, particularly political prisoners, which occurred in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, which is controlled by MOIS, following the June 2009 elections in Iran;
More generally, MOIS is known to have used abhorrent methods of interrogation such as mock executions and forms of sexual violence. MOIS agents have also arrested and detained members of the Bahai religion without charges;
In 1999, critics of the Iranian government accused “rogue elements” of the ministry for the infamous serial murders of dissident writers and intellectuals, including assassination of Iranian political dissidents inside and outside the country;
Hossein Parvar, a Net Peygard Samavat Company-affiliated actor, has provided a group affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) with names, websites, email addresses, and U.S. person data;
Involved In:
Military Weapon Program
Human Rights Violations
Also Known As:
Islamic Republic of Iran Intelligence Ministry
Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Vezarat-e Ettela’at Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran
VAJA
VEVAK
Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar
MOIS
SAVAMA
Established:
18 August 1984
Country:
Iran
Address:
Headquarters located in Tehran, Iran; bounded roughly by Sanati Street on the west, 30th Street on the south, and Iraqi Street on the east
Ministry of Intelligence, Second Negarestan Street, Pasdaran Avenue, Tehran, Iran
Website:
www.vaja.ir
E-mail:
info@vaja.ir
Person of interests:
Esmail Khatib
Mahmoud Alavi
Reason for the color:
» Department of State concurrently designated MOIS for being responsible for, or complicit in, to have directly or indirectly engaged in, or to be responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the hostage-taking of a U.S. national or the wrongful detention of a U.S. national abroad.
» Added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on September 9, 2022 pursuant to Executive Order 13694, as amended, for being responsible for, or complicit in, directly or indirectly, cyber-enabled activity that is reasonably likely to result in, or has materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security of the United States, and that have the purpose or effect of causing a significant disruption to the availability of a computer or network of computers;
» The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated on 2/16/2012 the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), pursuant to Executive Orders (E.O.) 13224, 13553 and 13572, which target terrorists and their supporters and those responsible for human rights abuses in Iran and Syria. Iran’s primary intelligence organization, for its support to terrorist groups as well as its central role in perpetrating human rights abuses against the citizens of Iran and its role in supporting the Syrian regime as it continues to commit human rights abuses against the people of Syria;