The U.S.-based international online financial platform, PayPal, has terminated the account of the Berlin-based Al-Mustafa Institute—an organization controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) discovered PayPal’s discontinuance of Al-Mustafa’s account earlier this week.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Iran-based Al-Mustafa International University for enabling terrorism in 2020, during the waning days of the Trump administration. Treasury officials reported that the university, headquartered in Quom, serves as “a recruiting ground for the IRGC-QF [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force].” The Berlin-based Al-Mustafa Institute, founded in 2016, is one of the university’s many branches.
A PayPal spokesperson told FWI that while it cannot comment on specific accounts, “PayPal takes regulatory and compliance obligations seriously, including U.S. economic and trade sanctions administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). If a payment is suspected of violating the OFAC sanctions, PayPal will investigate the payment and discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate them.”
Clicking on the donor section of the PayPal entry on the German-language website of the Al-Mustafa Instistute, a Shiite educational institute, prompts a notice that reads: “This organization is currently ineligible to receive donations.” (The institute did not respond to multiple email inquiries from FWI.)
Undoubtedly, the Islamic Republic provides its agents in Germany with good living conditions...
Germany Investigating Al-Mustafa
The revelation comes at a difficult time for the institute. With Trump’s return, the Tehran-backed organization and its numerous offshoots, located in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, are set to endure increased scrutiny. The scrutiny will come as part of the likely return of the “maximum pressure” policy that Trump imposed on Iran during his first term.
And if that’s not bad enough, Germany has cracked down on the institute, which serves as one of the principal mechanisms for recruiting terrorists and exporting the Iranian regime’s highly dangerous brand of Shiite extremism that has engulfed the Middle East in conflict for decades, particularly since the October 7 massacre.
According to the mass circulation German paper, Bild, the German investigators are examining whether 700 people linked to the Al-Mustafa Institute—a subsidiary of the Al-Mustafa International University—are engaged in espionage. The headline of the article, published in late October, blared “Mullahs are Spying in Germany.”
Bild stated that German officials are investigating secret lists of names, including a list of 63 individuals holding German passports, a student directory from the international Al-Mustafa University containing 551 people connected to Germany, and a list of 78 trainees from Germany.
When FWI approached the German Interior Ministry (BMI) about the Bild report and whether the German government plans to close the Al-Mustafa Institute, Lars Harmsen, a spokesman for the agency, said, “In principle, the BMI does not comment on press reports. In principle, we also do not comment on possible bans on associations in order not to endanger any measures. As a matter of principle, we do not publicly comment on the measures taken by our international partners.”
Nevertheless, Harmsen stated that “Iran’s illegitimate activities are the focus of the security authorities,” citing a recent report from Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the topic to demonstrate the country’s interest in the problem. “A few months ago, the BMI banned the Iran-controlled ‘Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg’ (IZH) with its sub-organisations, thereby preventing support from there for the terrorist organisation ‘Hezbollah’ and aggressive anti-Semitism, which was propagated there,” he said.
Investigation a Long Time Coming
Sheina Vojoudi, a Germany-based Iranian dissident and adjunct fellow for the Gold Institute for International Strategy, lamented it took so long to investigate the institute, even after its parent organization in Iran was designated by the Trump administration.
“Germany’s negligence in this matter and allowing the expansion of such centers can have many serious consequences for the country, especially with the understanding that this institution was established by the direct order of Ali Khamenei, who is known globally for his anti-Western and antisemitic stance, for the purpose of expanding the Quds Force,” she said. “The main center of Al-Mustafa International University was established years ago in Qom by the order of Ali Khamenei and now has branches in more than 60 countries around the world. These centers were created to train forces for joining the Quds Force, the overseas branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”
Vojoudi, an Iranian Christian who fled Iran to avoid religious persecution, urged Germany to “show courage,” shut down the Al-Mustafa Institute, and “place the IRGC on the terrorist list.”
Germany has not taken firm steps to confront the Iranian regime and its threats, Vojoudi said, choosing to interact with the regime “from a position of weakness, adding, “The result has been the empowerment of the regime’s agents within the country—agents from various nationalities and proxy groups that not only endanger Germany’s security but also put the lives of Iranians living in Germany at risk. “
Vojoudi, who is a member of the NGO Iranian Liberal Women, added that “Undoubtedly, the Islamic Republic provides its agents in Germany with good living conditions to ensure they can focus solely on advancing the goals and ideology of the Islamic Republic. This is one of the reasons why individuals from various countries, including Arab nations and Afghanistan, turn to these centers, supported financially by the stolen wealth of the Iranian people.”
Consequently, Germany has become a kind of unregulated espionage zone for Iranian regime spies, assassins, and middlemen procuring illicit nuclear and missile technology, similar to the role Vienna played during the Cold War for communist spies.
In 2019, this journalist reported that Germany’s Interior Ministry said spies for the Islamic Republic of Iran have been some of the most active agents within the Federal Republic between 2007 and 2017, including assassination attempts on pro- Israel advocates.
Kazem Moussavi, a prominent German-Iranian dissident, warned the German public about the dangers of Al-Mustafa as early as 2017. He wrote on his website—Iran Appeasement Monitor—that “The Al-Mustafa Institute tries, under the guise of activities ‘for cultural and human sciences and Islamic studies’ to institutionalize and spread Shiism in this country and to recruit students, intellectuals and scientists and Muslim refugees and migrants and use them as regime lobbyists to influence the public in favor of Iranian politics.”
Influence in Britain, Elsewhere
The reach of Al-Mustafa International University is not limited to Berlin. According to Persian-language reports from regime-controlled media and websites, Al-Mustafa International University has chapters, affiliates, and activities in France, the Netherlands, Britain, and Latin America.
As a result of a 2023 London Jewish Chroniclejournalistic exposé on the Islamic College in London, which is reportedly linked to the Al-Mustafa International University, Middlesex University pulled the plug on its program that served as an accreditation of the school’s degrees.
The Iranian-American expert on the Islamic Republic, Alireza Nader, told FWI, “It’s critical that European countries, especially Germany, dismantle the Islamic Republic’s espionage and influence networks on their territories. Otherwise, we will see more terrorism on European soil, including the assassination of Iranian dissidents.”
A Threat in Latin America
In addition to Europe, Latin America has been fertile territory for disciples of Al-Mustafa International University to inculcate Ali Khamenei’s revolutionary Islamist ideology in segments of the population. According to a 2023 MEMRI report, Lighthouse International Publications, which is owned by Khamenei, has a Spanish-language Colombia branch, El Faro Internacional, that is operated by alumni of Al-Mustafa International University in Qom.
MEMRI noted that “El Faro Internacional is also part of Islam Oriente, a website run by Al-Mustafa University and headed by Mohsen Rabbani. Rabbani is one of the Iranian nationals implicated in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.”
The breadth of Al-Mustafa International University’s activities is also captured in a study by the Iranian-American researcher, Hassan Dai, who is the editor of the Iranian American Forum.
He wrote that “Al Mustafa has branches in several Asian countries. The most important ones are in India, the branch in Indonesia called the Islamic College which is affiliated with the Islamic College in London, branch in Malaysia and in the Philippines. It also has smaller branches in Sri Lanka, China and Japan.”
Al-Mustafa also has an outpost in Nigeria, where a sizable Shiite population lives.
The upshot is this: Al-Mustafa’s outposts in the West, and the rest of the world, will provide the Trump administration with a number of targets to demonstrate just how serious it is about reinstituting its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran come January.
