Ismail said that they were there to save Rezaie from a group of assassins working for the Iranian regime that wanted him dead. She wanted to take him to the US to save him from the Iranian regime. In 2020, Jamshid Sharmahd, a 65-year-old Iranian German dissident residing in southern California, was on a layover in Dubai, UAE, when he was kidnapped by Iranian forces. But staying in Turkey is dangerous — the Iranian regime has reach and connections in that country that it does not elsewhere. The Iranian regime chose, instead, a bizarre plan for rendition with a confidence game.