A man with direct ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the paramilitary wing that reports to Iran's Supreme Leader and is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department — tried to board a plane to Los Angeles on Saturday, posing as the president of Iran's football federation. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said his team caught the guy before he ever left the ground.
The flight was headed from Mexico to L.A. for Iran's World Cup match against Belgium. The man never made it on board.
The individual in question is Mehdi Taj, Iran's football federation president, who Mullin said was installed in the role only since 2022. "When we started doing the research on him, he had only been put in place since 2022, and we didn't allow him to board the plane," Mullin told Fox News. "The guy trying to get on the plane yesterday had direct ties to IRGC."
Taj is a formerly high-ranking IRGC intelligence officer. Not a casual acquaintance. Not a guy who once shook hands with someone in a uniform. An intelligence officer for a designated terrorist organization, repackaged as a sports executive and handed credentials to walk into the United States during the biggest sporting event on the planet.
Mullin went further, explaining that Iran's delegation tried to bring roughly 120 people into the country — the standard traveling party for most World Cup teams. The U.S. accepted 53. The rest, Mullin said, "all also had direct ties to the IRGC and aren't their normal traveling group." That's approximately 67 people with alleged paramilitary connections attempting entry under the cover of a soccer tournament.
"These games that Iran plays unfortunately makes them an adversary that you can't trust," Mullin said.
Iran's football federation responded exactly how you'd expect. Their official statement called Mullin's claim "an outright and undeniable lie" and described the allegations as "fabricated and entirely baseless." Head coach Amir Ghalenoei told reporters, "Our team is the most oppressed one in the whole World Cup." Player Alireza Jahanbakhsh added, "We don't ask for much. We just ask for the same procedure as for all the other 47 teams."
The same procedure as all the other 47 teams. Fair enough. Except the other 47 teams didn't try to smuggle personnel linked to a designated terrorist organization onto a commercial flight. That distinction matters. When 11 members of your delegation get denied visas on national security grounds and your federation president turns out to have an IRGC intelligence background, the "we're just here to play soccer" defense needs a bit more supporting evidence.
This isn't the first friction point. The U.S. imposed strict travel conditions on Iran's World Cup delegation — arrive the day before matches, leave the evening after. Iran played New Zealand to a 2-2 draw on June 15 in Inglewood, California, under those same restrictions. FIFA has been involved. Iran has complained to anyone who will listen.
But the complaints look different now. The Iranian government said we were being unreasonable. Discriminatory. Paranoid. Then one of their guys with a direct line to the IRGC tried to walk through the door dressed as a soccer executive.
The World Cup is being held in stadiums from LA to Miami, from Boston to Houston. Tens of thousands of fans from dozens of countries are packed into stadiums and surrounding neighborhoods. The security stakes aren't theoretical. And the country that just got caught trying to slip a paramilitary-linked operative past DHS is the same country whose proxies have been active across the Middle East and whose assassination plots on American soil have been documented by the DOJ.
Seventy people with alleged IRGC ties, packed into a soccer delegation. One of them running the whole federation. And their official response is that we made it up.
When the cover story is "soccer president" and the background check says "intelligence officer," only one of those things is made up.