Ayatollah Khamenei’s son owns £50million luxurious flats overlooking Israeli embassy in London – as consultants warn of ‘severe safety breach’
The son of Iran‘s recently killed dictator owns two luxury apartments overlooking the Israeli embassy in London, with experts warning of a ‘serious security breach’, it emerged on Saturday night.
Mojtaba Khamenei – tipped to succeed his father Ali Khamenei as Iran’s new Ayatollah – owns the properties in Kensington, west London, with an estimated value of more than £50million.
The sixth and seventh floor apartments, which come with servants’ quarters on the ground floor, are a stone’s throw from Kensington Palace, the official residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Khamenei, 56, is understood to have owned the two apartments since 2014, but his ownership only emerged after a year-long investigation by the news channel Bloomberg.
It has revealed Khamenei also owns 11 mansions in Hampstead, North London, through a front man and a shell company registered in the Isle of Man.
The Bloomberg investigation also revealed Khamenei has amassed a portfolio of properties around the world worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
The funds for the purchases came from Iran’s sanction-busting oil programme. according to the probe.
The revelations that Khamenei – a leader within the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – owns two flats that look down on the Israeli embassy building raises fears the apartments may have been used to spy on the diplomatic mission.
Mojtaba Khamenei (pictured in 2019), 56, owns two properties in Kensington, west London, with an estimated value of more than £50million
The sixth and seventh floor apartments, which come with servants’ quarters on the ground floor, are a stone’s throw from Kensington Palace (pictured, file photo), the official London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales
Khamenei, 56, is the son of Iran’s recently killed Ayatollah and favourite to succeed his father as Supreme Leader. He is understood to have owned the two apartments since 2014
It comes as four Iranians were arrested in north London in the early hours of Friday on suspicion of spying for Iran’s intelligence services.
The men, who are Iranian and dual British-Iranian, are suspected of surveilling Jewish ‘locations and individuals’.
The locations are thought to be synagogues in London, and the individuals may have been worshippers.
Six others were arrested in Harrow, in the north-west of the capital, on suspicion of aiding and abetting an offender.
Sources have indicated the six are not linked to any plots.
A terrorism and security specialist said on Saturday night that the Kensington flats, less than 50 metres behind the Israeli embassy building, could be used to monitor and photograph staff and visitors.
The proximity would allow audio capture of outdoor garden conversations of embassy personnel, as well as ‘laser-assisted monitoring of window vibrations to extract speech from the inside’.
The below-50m range would also allow hacking of embassy wireless networks to monitor internet traffic.
Roger Macmillan, a counter-terrorism specialist and former director of security at the Iranian dissident satellite channel, Iran International, said: ‘Iran owns the view into the back of the Israeli Embassy from less than 50 metres away.
‘Two apartments, direct line of sight, held through Mojtaba Khamenei. That’s not a property portfolio – it’s a permanent surveillance platform.
‘This is a serious security breach.’
The two flats near the embassy and the 11 others on Hampstead’s Bishops Avenue, nicknamed Billionaire’s Row, together are worth an estimated £200million.
Most are thought to be lying empty and several are derelict.
They are on a private road called Palace Green, guarded by police and private security 24 hours a day.
Photography is not allowed on the street, because of security issues surrounding the embassy and the street’s super-elite residents.
The flats are owned through a trusted front man called Ali Ansari, an Iranian oligarch and a close family friend, according to Bloomberg.
How should Britain respond when foreign elites buy property near sensitive national security sites?
It comes as four Iranians were arrested in north London in the early hours of Friday on suspicion of spying for Iran’s intelligence services. Pictured: Police officers at an address in Watford related to the arrest operation
The men, who are Iranian and dual British-Iranian, are suspected of surveilling Jewish ‘locations and individuals’. Pictured: Police at an address in Watford in relation to the arrest operation
They were purchased in 2014 and 2016 for £16.7million and £19million.
Ansari bought the flats shortly after he is believed to have purchased the 11 properties in Hampstead for Khamenei in 2013 for a total value then of £73million.
The Hampstead properties were bought through a shell company called Birch Ventures Limited, registered in the Isle of Man, whose beneficial owner is Ansari, according to Land Registry and company documents.
All 13 properties – including the Kensington ones – have had a charge laid on them by the Treasury since October last year, which blocks them from being sold.
The charges were imposed after Ansari was sanctioned by the Treasury, which accuses him of being a ‘corrupt banker’ who financed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC).
On Saturday night, the Israeli embassy declined to comment.
A spokesman for Transparency International said: ‘We now know that Iran’s political leaders have invested heavily in the UK over the last 10 years.
‘Failure to build effective defences to tackle money laundering in the UK has national security implications, leaving our financial system vulnerable leaders from hostile, kleptocratic states and cronies who finance their regimes.’
Roger Gherson, a lawyer acting for Ansari, said: ‘Mr Ansari vehemently denies any financial relationship with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the son of the former supreme leader.
‘It is his intention to challenge the UK Government’s decision to impose sanctions.’
