Exclusive | Iran penetrates California as freeway sign terrifies drivers with photos and menacing threats

A digital traffic display on one of Los Angeles’ busiest freeways was hacked to promote a menacing website targeting enemies of Iran’s Islamic regime – a chilling breach that has put Iranian dissidents in the city on edge.Passersby spotted the sign on the 405 Freeway near Persian Square in Westwood blaring the web address goorkan.info, a site advertising a “national campaign to identify and punish traitors to the homeland.”The site described itself as “a collective and patriotic effort to identify, introduce, and punish traitors to the country and supporters of hostile actions against the soil and people of Iran.”The traffic sign is operated by the California Department of Transportation, which acknowledged the disturbing takeover and unauthorized message.“The Caltrans project team was alerted to the unauthorized message Sept.15, and alerted the contractor to restore normal operations,” the agency said.“Review/field investigation of the message and access history is ongoing.”The website has been linked to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military force designated by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.

“Goorkan” means “gravedigger” in Farsi.The disturbing breach comes as the FBI warned on Sept.15 that Iranian state cyber actors were targeting dissidents, activists and journalists around the world.The alarm comes months after the Trump administration began cracking down on Iranian nationals with ties to the regime, including relatives of senior Iranian figures who had been living in the US.

Among those targeted was Eissa Hashemi, the son of former Iranian vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar — notoriously nicknamed ‘Screaming Mary’ by American hostages during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis — who had been living in the Los Angeles area before his green card was revoked.Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran, with an estimated 141,000 Iranian Americans liv...