They Left Iran, but Now the Regime Is Seizing Their Assets to Silence Them

The Iranian authorities are pursuing diaspora dissidents and journalists, extending the government’s repressive apparatus far beyond its borders.

By Yeganeh Torbati

Yeganeh Torbati spoke to 12 Iranians living abroad whose property in Iran, or that of their family members, was targeted for confiscation.

The retired couple in Iran first realized that something was wrong when their bank cards stopped working in early May. After inquiring with the authorities, they discovered that their assets had been frozen by order of the country’s intelligence ministry.

The couple learned, eventually, that they were being punished for the actions of their daughter Noushin Najafiragheb, who lived in Europe — specifically, for her social media posts opposing the Iranian government, according to another daughter, Mehrnoush Najafiragheb.

Across Iran, the government has used asset seizures as punishment for actions taken abroad. Homes and businesses have been seized, life savings raided, family heirlooms taken. When those targeted had little inside Iran themselves, the authorities went after their family members back home, interviews show.

As the Najafiragheb family pressed their case with the authorities, Mehrnoush said, they encountered dozens of other people facing the specter of losing their life’s savings as punishment for the actions of their relatives abroad.

“We realized we weren’t alone,” Ms. Najafiragheb recalled her mother telling her. She said her sister Noushin had declined to be interviewed to avoid further government pressure on her family.

The New York Times interviewed 12 Iranians living abroad whose property or that of their family members was selected for confiscation by the government this year, as well as two lawyers aware of such cases. In some cases, the assets have already been seized, while in others, people are opposing the seizures in court. The Times also reviewed judicial records and text messages that detailed the freezing or seizure of assets.

Iran’s foreign ministry did not respond to detailed questions about the confiscations. Government officials have said the confiscations are based in part on a new law that has intensified the penalties for those accused of aiding “hostile governments,” particularly the United States and Israel. The law, which was passed after Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June 2025, requires the seizing of property for some offenses.

The authorities appear to be interpreting the law expansively, as it does not mention going after relatives’ assets, and to be characterizing almost any act of public dissent as aiding the enemy. Officials have said they will use the assets to compensate victims for war damage and to repair civilian infrastructure.

The seizures, typically aimed at journalists and dissidents, are part of a relentless campaign by the Iranian government to punish dissent at home and abroad. It began in the wake of mass anti-government protests at the start of the year and has intensified since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, with dozens of people executed without due process and thousands more detained.

The Islamic republic has long used confiscation as a repression tactic against its perceived enemies, going back to when it first took power in 1979. Now, the authorities are employing it at a broad scale and against the diaspora, often to punish those who attend anti-government protests, work with foreign news outlets or support prominent opposition figures.

The seizures have been uniquely effective in extending the government’s repressive apparatus far beyond its borders, into the heart of Western democracies thousands of miles away. They have also created a culture of fear among some critics of the government abroad.

The authorities have seized the assets of over 400 people outside the country “in accordance” with the new law on cooperating with hostile governments, Iranian media outlets reported in April.

Several people interviewed said they would not contest the rulings, expecting little success in Iran’s court system, while others are fighting them and may manage to keep their properties. Ms. Najafiragheb’s parents, both retired civil servants, were eventually told by the authorities that their assets had been unfrozen, after around five months, she said.

In some cases, the government has demanded that people outside the country apologize for their statements or shut down their social media accounts to be spared.

‘Someone to Punish’

Some of those affected have large followings — singers, professional athletes and former officials — but others are members of the diaspora with little public presence. They include people from across Iran’s political spectrum, including those who have expressed opposition to the American and Israeli military attacks on Iran.

In recent years, diaspora opposition groups have organized mass rallies in North America, Europe and Australia against the Iranian government, helping to direct global attention to its human rights abuses. Iranian émigrés frequently share criticism of the government online or lobby for policies to pressure the regime.

Among them is Ehsan Ebrahimian, a dissident living in Cyprus who stages regular anti-regime protests there. He was on a list of people whose properties in Semnan Province, Iran, were being seized, according to a report in May in Mehr News, a semiofficial outlet. The report referred to him and others as “traitors to the homeland.”

The police also seized his mother’s car for over two weeks, Mr. Ebrahimian said in an interview. They told her that her son ought to shut down his Instagram account, where he has around 4,200 followers and shares videos of his protests, or else they would close her store and confiscate her property, he said.

“The pressure they exert is so immense,” Mr. Ebrahimian said. He did not shut down his account but said he had tried to maintain a lower profile and had held fewer protests in recent months. “The power is in their hands.”

Reza Tayyari is an opposition activist in Canada who said his apartment, vehicles and gold in Iran were confiscated this year. He said many dissidents he knew had deactivated their social media accounts and stopped showing up to protests for fear that their assets would be confiscated.

“There are many who would have liked to be active here in a free country but were effectively forced into silence,” he said.

Nikki Yazdani, 41, a journalist who worked for newspapers in Iran, moved to London in 2017 to work for Iran International, a Persian-language television news channel outside the country that is critical of the Iranian government.

The regime accuses Iran International of being an arm of the Israeli government and those who work for it or provide it with information as helping a hostile state. The judiciary has identified dozens of Iran International staff for confiscation this year, according to lists published by news outlets in Iran. The company that owns Iran International did not respond to a request for comment, but it previously denied connections to any government and has said that it is editorially independent.

Ms. Yazdani, who was once imprisoned in Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps under accusation of sharing information with foreign news outlets, quit the channel in June 2025, and she has referred publicly to her disagreements with the channel’s editorial decisions. Months later, her name appeared on a list published by Iranian outlets of those whom the government had chosen for confiscation. One such report referred to her and others on the list as “supporters of the enemy.”

“Leaving Iran, it hasn’t put me beyond the reach of their pressure,” she said. “It keeps chasing me, even after all these years.”

Ms. Yazdani shared judicial records documenting seizure orders from early April for her stake in her deceased father’s Tehran office. The authorities are also going after her share of the apartment where her mother lives, she said.

She called the government’s efforts against her “vindictive” and said, “There is no point at which they stop treating you as someone to punish.”

An Irregular Process

Marzieh Mohebbi, an Iranian human rights lawyer living in France, said she had been asked for legal advice by a handful of people outside Iran this year whose families had been threatened by officials with property seizure. It is “entirely illegal” according to Iranian law for the authorities to confiscate the assets of relatives of dissidents who live abroad, Ms. Mohebbi said.

Her own property inside Iran was confiscated in 2023, which she said was punishment for her human rights work in the country.

The judiciary is using a new electronic system to speed up the process of identifying and seizing properties, a government official, Mohammad Kazemifard, said in May in remarks carried by Iranian media. A process that used to take up to 400 days, giving the accused time to transfer or conceal assets, now takes “only a few clicks,” he reportedly said.

Some people said their property had been taken with little chance for them to oppose the decisions. Reza Gheibi, a former Iranian official and journalist who left the country in 2022, learned his property was being taken only after he was named in the media, on the same list as Ms. Yazdani.

Bank accounts belonging to Mr. Gheibi and his daughters were seized this year, he said, along with homes in Tehran, on the Caspian Sea, in the city of Hamadan and elsewhere. Officials had told his lawyer of the decision only in person, and the authorities refused to provide any documents, he said.

The breadth of the confiscation campaign has taken its victims by surprise, and there are no signs that it is slowing down.

Saeid Dehghan, an Iranian Canadian human rights lawyer, said he was aware of at least five members of the diaspora whose assets or those of their families had been targeted or seized this year.

Most of them had intentionally kept a low profile in their civic, journalistic or political work to protect their families inside Iran from facing reprisal.

“If even that degree of self-restraint no longer shields relatives or property from pressure, the message is not directed only at five individuals,” Mr. Dehghan said. “It is directed at a much wider Iranian diaspora.”

Yeganeh Torbati is the Iran correspondent for The Times.