PayPal DESTROYS Iranian Spy Network in Germany

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The US-based international online financial platform PayPal terminated the account of al-Mustafa Institute, an Islamic education institute connected to the Iranian regime and based in the German capital, Berlin, in November. 

A spokesperson for PayPal said that while it cannot comment on specific accounts, the company “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.”

Proof of the account’s closure is found when someone clicks on the donor section of the PayPal entry of al-Mustafa Institute’s German-language website, and a notice appears saying, “This organization is currently ineligible to receive donations.”

While the institute, founded in 2016, is based in Germany, al-Mustafa Institute is considered an offshoot of al-Mustafa International University (MIU), an international, Islamic, university-style seminary based in Qom, Iran. Al-Mustafa Institute is one of the university’s several branches. 

Al-Mustafa International University (MIU) currently has an estimated more than 40,000 international students from 130 different nationalities enrolled. Aside from teaching foreign nationals in and outside Iran, the institute has also developed a network of more than 50 branches in other countries, including the al-Mustafa Institute in Germany. However, the organization also focuses on Latin America, Africa, and Asia. 

Both organizations have been under intense scrutiny from Western governments, notably Germany and the United States, for enabling terrorism. 

The US Treasury Department sanctioned al-Mustafa International University (MIU) in 2020 during the first Trump administration for supporting terrorism. Treasury officials noted that the institution served as “a recruiting ground for the IRGC-QF [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force].” 

The news came at a time when Donald Trump is set to start his second administration as US President in January 2025, since a second Trump administration is expected to apply “maximum pressure” to the Iranian regime, similar to what Trump did during his first term.

The German government has also cracked down on the al-Mustafa Institute, which has been accused of serving as a principal mechanism for recruiting terrorists and exporting the Iranian regime’s brand of Shia extremism that has engulfed the Middle East and the rest of the world for years. 

Established in 2008, shortly after integrating two older educational institutions, al-Mustafa International University (MIU) is an umbrella organization that coordinates schools, education centers, and even seminaries exclusively for non-Iranians inside and outside Iran. 

According to the report titled “Propaganda, Procurement and Lethal Operations: Iran’s Activities Inside America,” published by the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, the institution is overseen by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei through the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly (ABWA), and both organizations have been accused of propagating the Islamic Republic’s ideology and its version of Shia Islam. 

While al-Mustafa International University (MIU) serves as a network of educational institutes and schools, ABWA acts more like an international, non-governmental organization founded by Khamenei and a group of Shia Muslim elites under the supervision of experts of Islamic law and jurisprudence to identify, organize, educate, and support the followers of the Prophet Muhammad’s family, better known as Ahl al-Bayt.

The report also highlighted that both al-Mustafa International University (MIU) and ABWA not only serve to spread the Iranian regime’s influence around the world but also complement each other by having common goals and ideological foundations and even sharing key personnel and even individuals on their boards of directors.

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