A Liverpool man charged with offences related to the National Security Act has been found to be the business director of companies all over Liverpool.
Vahid Aberi, 39, from Liverpool, was arrested in Birmingham on the 15th of July in relation to offences that violate the National Security Act. Aberi was said to have offered his services to who he believed was a contact in the Iranian government. It was actually Counter-Terror Police. He offered to arrange storage locations, pick-ups and drop-offs for his ‘contact’. The BBC’s Sam Harrison reported that these incidents occurred between December 2025 and July of this year.
Vahid Aberi, born on the 6th of February 1987, appears to be the director of multiple businesses that span from Kirkdale to Toxteth. The Companies’ House website shows Aberi as being in charge of 8 companies, with only half of them being active. The most recent, ATA Pizza, was incorporated only a day before his arrest and is listed as being in uk/local/kirkdale/">Kirkdale on Westminster Road. Another, LUXORAEXPRESS LTD, is listed in Croxteth in a residential area and is reported to be a retailer of jewellery. The others are kebab houses, another two pizza restaurants and a tool shop. All of the addresses are listed in Croxteth and Kirkdale, with the exception of one dissolved kebab house in Bootle.
The National Security Act 2023 was passed to update laws on espionage and providing assistance to foreign governments. The articles which Aberi is accused of having violated relate to actions that ‘materially assist a foreign intelligence service in UK-related activities’. The IRGC, an Islamic multi-branch military organisation created by the Iranian government, have been proscribed by the government as a terror group which makes support of or assistance of said group an illegal act. The Quds, the IRGC’s military intelligence service, would be banned under this law and is likely who Aberi would’ve believed he was in contact with. The British-Iranian man will appear at Old Bailey on August 21st.
