The Iranian kidnapping scheme—which appears to be the first publicized case on U.S. soil—dated back to at least June 2020. Robin Wright revealed in the New Yorker: "According to the D.O.J. announcement, the plotters had identified travel routes from Alinejad's home to a Brooklyn waterfront, researched a service offering military-style speedboats for maritime evacuation out of New York, and studied sea travel from New York to Venezuela, which has close ties with the Islamic Republic. In a detailed e-mail, Kiya Sadeghi, another of the four indicted Iranian intelligence agents, even instructed the private investigators to take pictures of the envelopes in Alinejad's mailbox. The F.B.I. stated that it had foiled Iran's scheme in the United States. "Not on our watch," William Sweeney, the head of New York's FBI office, said." Assassination plot On July 28, 2022, a man named Khalid Mehdiyev approached Alinejad's residence in Brooklyn, looking inside the windows and attempting to open the front door. He was stopped later that day by New York City Police during a traffic stop. His license had been suspended and he was arrested for driving without one. The police found a suitcase in his car containing an AK-47 assault rifle with an obliterated serial number. The rifle, manufactured by Norinco, was loaded with a round in the chamber and a magazine attached, along with a second, separate magazine and approximately 66 rounds of ammunition. Mehdiyev, who is from Yonkers, waived his Miranda rights and told police that he was looking for an apartment. Mehdiyev, unprompted, volunteered that he did not know about a gun and claimed the suitcase was not his. On August 11, 2022, Mehdiyev was indicted on one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Alinejad quotes a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as saying, "This time their objective was to kill you." On January 27, 2023, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment charging Mehdiyev and two other men in a plot to assassinate Alinejad. Masih Alinejad Harassment and Unlawful Targeting (HUNT) Act of 2021 In 2022, the US Congress passed a bill named after the US-based journalist, Masih Alinejad, to impose sanctions on foreign persons (i.e., individuals or entities) that are acting on behalf of Iran's government and involved in the harassment of certain individuals, such as human rights activists. As a