Tehran students latest victims in wave of armed muggings
Two university students were assaulted near their dormitory in Tehran on Wednesday, marking the latest in a series of attacks targeting students in the Iranian capital.
Two university students were assaulted near their dormitory in Tehran on Wednesday, marking the latest in a series of attacks targeting students in the Iranian capital.
“The recent assault took place in a location with a history of similar crimes,” said Hamed Ali Sadeghi, Khajeh Nasir University’s deputy for student and cultural affairs. “These two were targeted by a specific gang,” he added.
Just days earlier, a female student from Shahid Beheshti University was attacked 50 meters from her dormitory in the capital’s northern Velenjak neighborhood. The robbers broke her teeth and stole her phone.
In February, 19-year-old Amir Mohammad Khaleghi, a business student at the University of Tehran, was stabbed to death by robbers near his dormitory.
Student associations warned afterward that the threat extended to dormitories across the country and criticized authorities for ignoring repeated calls to secure the surroundings of student housing.
Protests erupted following Khaleghi’s death, but attacks have continued. About a month later, two students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences were robbed at knifepoint.
According to the student council, the victims sought help from campus security after being threatened with cold weapons.
The pattern is not limited to student areas. On April 20, video circulated of a motorcyclist snatching a necklace from a woman carrying a child in southern Tehran, knocking both to the ground.
Last week, a surveillance camera recorded a thief tearing off a man’s gold chain as he sat at a café in Saadatabad, northern Tehran.
In Meybod, Yazd province, other footage showed a phone being violently stolen from a 16-year-old girl in broad daylight.
Iranian authorities have announced arrests in a few high-profile cases but have yet to introduce broad preventive measures.
Instead, universities have advised students to use better-lit, alternative routes — guidance viewed by many as an admission of official inaction.
The uptick in street crime comes as Iran’s economy remains in crisis. Inflation is estimated to have reached nearly 50 percent, while the rial has suffered a steep depreciation.
The exchange rate briefly hit 1,060,000 rials to the US dollar during recent weeks before temporarily falling to 800,000 following the resumption of indirect talks with the United States.
Over one third of Iranians now live below the poverty line and unemployment sits at around 20% for the country's young population and 7-8% overall, according to official data, although actual numbers are believed to be far higher.
Earlier this month, Ham-Mihan daily reported that food theft from stores in Iran has increased, with rising prices and growing hunger among the population cited as major reasons.
In September, Ali Valipour Goudarzi, head of Tehran’s Criminal Investigation Police, said that some thieves resort to theft solely due to economic conditions, and that if the situation improves, their numbers will decrease.
Rawa Majid received funds from Iran’s embassy in Denmark to help coordinate attacks against Israeli diplomatic facilities in Copenhagen and Stockholm, according to a source familiar with the matter inside the IRGC.
The source also said the gang leader travels between Iran and Afghanistan for operations overseen by the IRGC.
Majid leads a criminal group, Foxtrot, recently sanctioned by the UK and the US for its alleged role in orchestrating attacks on Israeli interests. Both governments accused the group of working as a proxy force for Iran in Europe. Tehran has denied the charges.
"Iran’s brazen use of transnational criminal organizations and narcotics traffickers underscores the regime’s attempts to achieve its aims through any means, with no regard for the cost to communities across Europe,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement in March as the US sanctioned Majid and Foxtrot.
The US Treasury said the group has carried out operations targeting Israeli and Jewish institutions, including an attempted bombing outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm and grenade attacks near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen in October 2024.
The attacks are part of an apparent broader strategy that has alarmed European security services. In a December 2024 report, Bloomberg detailed how Iran-affiliated groups have increasingly recruited local criminals — including minors — to carry out assaults on Jewish and Israeli institutions across Europe.
Iran’s expanding covert footprint in Europe is linked to the broader regional conflict between Israel and Iranian proxy forces, Bloomberg reported, and the strategy may be aimed at fueling social tensions in countries already divided over immigration and integration.
Sweden’s Security Service (Säpo) and Israeli intelligence agency Mossad have both identified the Foxtrot criminal network as one of the groups recruited by Tehran for sabotage operations in Europe.
While Iranian officials deny using criminal organizations abroad, leaders of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly praised attacks on Israeli interests globally.