Police in Australia and Canada have arrested four people accused of trying to blackmail a senior Iraqi politician, after what was described as a years-long campaign of intimidation on Wednesday.
Dual raids were launched after a series of attacks on a house in Sydney and online extortion attempts linked to an address in Canada.
The target was the family of a ‘very senior politician’ who is a dual Australian and Iraqi citizen and ‘spends almost all his time in Iraq’, Australian police said.
Australian investigators were able to link social media accounts used in the case to the city of Edmonton in western Canada, police said.
The attacks allegedly began in December 2019 when masked and armed assailants broke into a house in west Sydney and assaulted a 16-year-old boy and stole money.
Months later, shots were fired at the home while two adults, two teenagers and a child were inside. A window was broken in a separate incident.
Earlier this month, the front porch was set on fire during the night and a threat was left out.
Edmonton police have reportedly arrested a man, Ghazi Shanta, 33, and a woman, Diana Kadri, 32, who are each charged with extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion.
Two men in their twenties were also arrested in Sydney.
“During this time, the family received various demands for money and threats to their well-being via social media and letters at their home,” Australian police said.
Australian media have identified the member of parliament as Ahmed Assadi – a senior figure in Hashed al-Shaabi, a powerful state-backed paramilitary network made up of mostly Shiite armed groups.
Police did not confirm the man’s identity.
“With the immediate communication of today’s communication tools, it has been critical for us to work with the Australian police to carry out simultaneous arrests on both sides of the planet,” said Phil Hawkins of the Edmonton Force’s Investigation Unit for cybercrime said.
“The warrants were executed seamlessly, and together we were able to arrest four suspects in two countries without incident,” he said.
The unit became involved following an interpol request from the Australian Federal Police.