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Baseball caps, COVID masks, sneakers and polo shirts. It’s an unremarkable outfit, but it’s the uniform of choice for Iran’s secret police.
In footage released last week, a group of men is seen kidnapping a young female activist. All dressed up to blend in with the crowd.
A Sky News investigation analysed several video clips of the incident to determine the men were members of Iranian security forces.
Investigation revealed how plainclothes police were used to infiltrate protests in Iran and kidnap activists.
It is one of several ruthless tactics used by the regime to suppress a population that has risen in police custody in the six weeks since Mahsa Amini, 22, was detained on suspicion of violating the conservative state’s strict hijab law.
kidnapping by day
On October 15, a group of protesters began chanting anti-regime slogans on a busy shopping street in the city of Karaj, 20 miles from the Iranian capital Tehran.
The incident took place in the Gohardasht district of Karaj, at the exclamation mark above
A few days ago, protests took place at an intersection just steps from the city’s university. But this Saturday afternoon, members of Iran’s intelligence services were waiting.
The clip below captures the moment plainclothes officers drag a woman believed to be a protester into their car.
The kidnapping seemed relatively chaotic.
At least five police officers were involved, and a bystander intervened. He was chased away at gunpoint by an officer in a green shirt who pulled out a hidden pistol. While it’s unclear if the gun was fired, gunshot-like sounds can be heard in the audio during the melee.
An undercover police officer pointed a gun at a bystander who tried to help the woman
Moments later, a second video was shot from a different angle. It appears the police have fired tear gas or something similar to disperse the crowd. The person filming the video can be heard saying the date, a technique protesters use to help verify the video.
A still from the beginning of the clip shows that it was shot in the same place as the previous video. The vans and storefronts on the road match.
The same van and storefront can be seen in both videos
In the background of the second video, protesters can be heard chanting Iran’s supreme leader in a barrage: “Death to Khamenei, death to dictators!”
The grey car in which the woman was bound was then seen backing up on the road. The kidnapped woman is believed to be still inside.
It is unclear what happened to the woman. Most international journalists are banned from reporting on the ground, and the threat to local journalists is high. This means that brief video clips filtered through severely restricted internet connections are often the only glimpses we get of what’s going on.
Dr. Saeid Golkar, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the author of a book on Iran’s secure state, paints a grim picture of the woman’s fate.
“It’s hard to say what will happen to this lady, but there is no doubt that she will be tortured,” he said.
“They usually do it in secret houses all over the country.”
Who is the man who took her away?
A third video, which appears to have been taken shortly before the kidnapping, shows a group of men gathered on a street corner just metres from the incident.
Analysis of the ground shadows and abduction footage in this video confirmed that they were all captured in the early afternoon.
These people were hard to identify – most were wearing COVID masks and baseball caps. But from their clothes it was confirmed that the two were involved in the kidnapping.
A man in a plaid shirt and another in a dark green polo shirt – who draws a pistol on bystanders helping the woman – appear in two clips.
Plainclothes police officers before (left) and during (right) kidnapping
The car used to kidnap the woman can also be seen in footage before the incident. It was driven by a man in a red shirt, as during the kidnapping.
The same grey Peugeot and the driver in the red shirt can be seen in different videos
Dr Golkar believes the type of car used provides clues about who these people work for. Two of the many security agencies that make up the Iranian regime commonly use this type of car.
“I think they’re either from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security or the IRGC Intelligence – they’re all known to use Peugeot 405s, and they’re usually silver or grey,” he said.
The last clue hints at what happened that afternoon.
One of the men can be seen holding a radio. These plainclothes officers didn’t stumble upon the protests—no loud noises or commotions were seen or heard when the men were on street corners. They are waiting for it.
A man used the radio before kidnapping
Dr Golkar believes the fact that they took the woman in broad daylight, and the chaotic nature of the kidnapping, is instructive.
“The method is usually to raid someone’s home at midnight…or a more subtle method, call their home and introduce themselves as a plumber or a municipality, and then when the door opens, they immediately arrest them, “He says.
“In this case, I don’t think they could find her or her address. They realized it was a place where she was coming and she was starting to protest, so they were waiting for her. But for other cases, for many For people we know they prefer to do it at midnight when there is no record.”
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covert tactics
This incident is not isolated. Several other videos emerged of plainclothes police infiltrating protests across Iran.
Methods of identifying them have been circulating on Iranian social media accounts. Some have suggested that officers often wear a shoulder bag as a means of tracking each other in the crowd. Other reports suggest they may be wearing similarly colored shirts or hats, but it seems impossible to identify which officers are undercover.
In this image, posted on social media in September, seven men were seen carrying satchels, most of whom helped strap a protester to a van.
Infiltrating protests is an effective tactic. Activists no longer know who to trust, which is why security forces around the world hire undercover agents when countries are threatened.
However, it is also an unmanageable police strategy. In Iran, the fear is that the secret police are free to carry out terrorist activities.
“That’s the problem with Iran’s undercover system, which they use to deny responsibility,” Dr Gorka said.
“You can’t find who these people are.”
Graphics: Phoebe Rowe, Bria Anderson
This Data and Forensics The team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to delivering transparent news from Sky News. We collect, analyze and visualize data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting techniques with advanced analysis of satellite imagery, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while showing how our journalism is done.
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