Washington D.C – Fox News, Jan. 12, 2026
Total number of US citizens held could exceed open-source reporting listing 5 hostages
The Islamic Republic of Iran may have more than eight American citizens and residents in its captivity, Fox News Digital can reveal based on information from sources outside the Trump Administration who are well-versed with Tehran’s hostage-taking policy system.
Information shows that the total number of Americans citizens and residents held hostage by the Iranian regime could exceed the open-source data listing five American hostages in Iran.
Iran’s regime arrested a U.S. citizen, Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old from Great Neck, New York, who went to Iran to visit family members last May. Iranian authorities arrested Hekmati in July 2025 and charged him with “making a trip to Israel” 13 years prior to his visit to Iran. Hekmati, a Persian Jew who was born in Iran, traveled to Israel in 2012 to attend his son’s Bar Mitzvah.
Iran bans Iranians from traveling to the Jewish state and any relations with Israel. Tehran considers Hekmati an Iranian citizen because the regime does not recognize dual citizenship.
The regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced Hekmati to four years in prison, and he is being held in Iran’s infamous Evin Prison — a complex that is reportedly used to torture political prisoners and dissidents. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) noted Hekmati has also been held at an intelligence ministry facility in Tehran. CNN reported that Hekmati suffers from bladder cancer.
