Asif Merchant, a suspected spy posing as an international clothing salesman, threaded his way through Brooklyn in early June, stopping by nightclubs to look for helpers in an alleged assassination plot linked to Iran.
A native of Pakistan with family in Iran, his target in the foiled plot was alleged to be a U.S. politician and official – possibly former President Trump.
The plot included two hit men, 25 actors to stage a fake protest and create additional chaos around the time of the murder, and a woman who would take care of "reconnaissance."
Prosecutors allege he hired two undercover FBI agents instead of assassins, but it's unclear how much progress he made recruiting the other plotters.
Merchant, 46, also allegedly planned to steal documents and USB drives. But the man he thought was his primary accomplice alerted authorities and set him up with two undercover agents posing as the hit men.
Merchant first traveled to Iran and then the U.S., where he approached the confidential source, referred to in the criminal complaint as "CS."
He told CS about his plans and procured a $5,000 advance payment to give to the assassins, according to court documents.
"Fortunately, the assassins Merchant tried to hire were undercover FBI agents," acting Assistant Director Christie Curtis, of the FBI New York Field Office, said in a statement.
While he was waiting to meet them, he wanted to recruit other conspirators.
"He instructed the CS to drive him around New York City looking for clubs where he could recruit other individuals to assist in his plot," according to an FBI affidavit. "On or about June 6, 2024, Merchant had the CS drive him around Brooklyn to scout clubs."
Merchant, who pushed CS to establish a yarn-dyed clothing business as a front for their communications, also used clothing items as code words, according to the Justice Department.
In yarn-dyed fabrics, the individual threads are colored before the piece is woven together. Merchant allegedly used fabric weights as code words for different parts of the crime.
T-shirts referred to the "lightest work," according to court documents. That would be the fake protest. Flannel shirts, a little heavier, meant stealing the documents. And a fleece jacket represented the "heaviest work" – murder.
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The documents also reveal that Merchant has at least two wives – one in Pakistan and one in Iran – and children with both of them.
The FBI arrested Merchant in Texas on July 12 – a day before Pennsylvania 20-year-old Thomas Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, injuring the former president and two spectators and killing a third man before counter-snipers took him down.
A federal source told Fox News Digital that investigators hadn't found any ties between Crooks and Merchant.
Investigators said Tuesday that Merchant's potential targets included people on "both sides" of the political aisle.
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The actors were supposed to stage protests at political rallies, and Merchant allegedly asked CS to explain different scenarios of how the targets would die, according to court documents. The hit men were to be told of their official target at the end of August or first week of September.
Merchant allegedly told CS, "people who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world. These are not normal people."
A spokesperson for Iran's mission to the United Nations said diplomats had not been briefed on the matter by American officials.
"However, it is evident that the modus operandi in question contradicts the Iranian Government’s policy of legally prosecuting the murderer of General Soleimani," they said.
Authorities have been on alert for retaliation against the former president and other officials in connection with the 2020 airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a terrorist whom the Defense Department said was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and allied troops and injuries to thousands more.
Days before Trump ordered the drone strike that killed him, Soleimani had orchestrated a deadly attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.
"For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens, and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security."
In 2022, federal prosecutors charged another Iranian agent with trying to have former White House national security adviser John Bolton killed for $300,000.
Merchant faces a federal murder for hire charge and was being transferred from Texas to New York. Federal prosecutors asked for him to be held without bail.
Fox News' Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
