The alleged assassination bid was placed in the hands of a gun for hire in late September, with plans to take out the president-elect before the November 5 election.
Shocking details of the sick plot were revealed on Friday after the FBI announced the arrests and noted that a third hitman is still on the loose.
An unnamed official with Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard contacted one man, identified as Farhad Shakeri, in December 2023 and first instructed him to put together a plan to assassinate a US citizen, federal officials said.
The target, identified as Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist who lives in Brooklyn and had repeatedly been outspoken about the regime.
Shakeri, a career criminal who previously served 14 years in a US prison for a robbery conviction, allegedly used his criminal network to tap two New York City residents to conduct surveillance and assassination operations on behalf of the Iranian government.
Between February and April, Shakeri exchanged a series of voice messages with his co-defendants, Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn and Jonathan Loadholt of Staten Island, discussing Alinejad's whereabouts, routine, and how the victim spent most of her time at home.
Shakeri, 51, instructed Rivera and Loadholt, 36, to sit tight and wait for their opportunity to take out the victim.
"You just gotta have patience," Shakeri told Rivera, 49, in one of the voice messages, according to the DOJ.
"You gotta wait and have patience to catch her either going in the house or coming out, or following her out somewhere and taking care of it.