Will Ali Khamenei’s son take over his $95 BILLION enterprise empire? Iran’s newly topped Supreme Leader already owns £100m London property portfolio

Mojtaba Khamenei will rule over the repressed Iranian population with an iron fist after replacing his slain father as the country’s Supreme Leader.

The ‘vengeful’ cleric, 56, is backed by the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and is viewed as even more extreme and oppressive than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran‘s new leader is said to want to ‘seek revenge’ against the US or even ordinary Iranians for the killing of his father and his wife.

Mojtaba, who has been wounded in the war, has not been seen in public since the outbreak of conflict and has been earmarked for assassination by Israel.

But as he asserts his power over his beleaguered nation he could benefit from his father’s extraordinary business empire, worth an estimated $95billion, which he built up by systematically seizing thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians.

And despite being sanctioned by the US in 2019, Mojtaba is said to oversee an investment empire of over £100million, with access to luxury properties in north London and bank accounts in the UK, Switzerland, UAE and Liechtenstein.

He is believed to own 11 properties on The Bishops Avenue – an exclusive street in Hampstead, north London, also known as ‘Billionaires’ Row’ and two luxury apartments overlooking the Israeli embassy in London.

The sixth and seventh floor apartments near the Israeli embassy, 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.

Mr Khamenei, the Ayatollah’s second son, owns the properties through a network of shell companies, one of which is registered in the tax haven of the Isle of Man. 

His vast portfolio also includes an exclusive villa in Dubai and several luxury European hotels.

A year-long investigation into the 56-year-old’s foreign investments revealed the full eyewatering extent of his sprawling wealth – which touches Persian Gulf shipping, Swiss bank accounts and luxury property – as well as the complex network that has allowed him to evade western sanctions imposed on him in 2019.

And he could further benefit from the riches of his father. 

Ali Khamenei, whose 36 years and eight months leading Iran resulted in the mass repression of women, the slaughter of civilians and the funding of terror groups including Hamas and Hezbollah, held his business empire under Setad, a little-known organisation set up by Ruhollah Khomeini just before his death.

Its full name in Persian is ‘Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam’ – Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam.   

It was one of the keys to the now-dead Iranian leader’s power and holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

A Reuters investigation in 2013 found Setad amassed a giant portfolio of real estate by claiming in Iranian courts, sometimes falsely, that the properties are abandoned.

The organisation holds a court-ordered monopoly on taking property in the name of the supreme leader, and regularly sells the seized properties at auction or seeks to extract payments from the original owners.

Under Khamenei, the organisation expanded its corporate holdings, buying stakes in dozens of Iranian companies, both private and public, with the stated goal of creating an Iranian conglomerate to boost the country’s economic growth.

Setad’s total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts.

Reuters estimated it at around $95billion, made up of about $52billion in real estate and $43billion in corporate holdings.

While there is no evidence that Khamenei used Setad to enrich himself, it did empower him. Through Setad, Khamenei had at his disposal financial resources whose value rivals the holdings of the shah, the Western-backed monarch who was overthrown in 1979.

This authority could now be passed on to his second son.

As Iran’s top cleric, Khamenei had final say on all governmental matters. His purview included his nation’s controversial nuclear programme, a major reason for American and Israeli strikes on Iran that ultimately led to his assassination.

Mojtaba was excluded from a list of three senior clerics his father reportedly identified last year, but on Sunday was announced as his successor after being appointed by the regime’s 88-person assembly.

Over the last 20 years, Mojtaba has built close ties with the Guards, giving him added leverage across Iran’s political and security organisations.

According to research by Bloomberg, Mojtaba’s name never appears on the multiple assets he owns – which are acquired through a spider network of shell companies, middle men and bank accounts held in the UK, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and the United Arab Emirates, through deals that stretch back to 2011.

The shell companies and intermediaries have been established across a wide geographical spread covering the UAE, Isle of Man, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Europe.

In October, the businessman was placed under UK sanctions for ‘hostile activity’ that included allegedly financing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

The move could prompt Mojtaba and his associates to sell off the network’s European assets ahead of similar sanctions imposed by the EU, an expert in money laundering investigations told Bloomberg .

As for the funding of this substantial portfolio, Mojtaba is believed to have siphoned off profit from Iranian oil sales, before funnelling it through his opaque network to evade international sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran’s military and political operations.

The hardline cleric is already marked for assassination by Israel after it vowed to ‘eliminate’ whoever succeded the Ayatollah, having killed him and Mojtaba’s wife Zahra Haddad-Adel in strikes on the first day of the conflict.

The new Supreme Leader has strong links to the IRGC and was chosen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts ‘under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards’, according to Iranian media.

Father-to-son succession is viewed negatively in the Shiite Muslim clerical establishment in Iran and Mojtaba is not a high-ranking cleric, has never held office and did not have an official role in the regime until now.

And his father is said to have indicated opposition to his candidacy because it would resemble the hereditary rule enacted by the US-backed Shah monarchy before it was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

But having been selected as Iran’s Supreme Leader, he will look to exact revenge for the killing on his father, according to one Iran expert.

They told BBC Radio 4: ‘He is vengeful. They have killed his father and he won’t let it go.

‘If he can’t get revenge on the US, he will take his revenge on ordinary people.’

Parham Ghobadi from BBC’s Persian service claimed he ‘has taken the most dangerous job in the world because the Americans and Israelis have vowed to target the next leader, saying the next leader of Iran is going to be a legitimate target for assassination.

He added: ‘There have been rumours around him that he is going to be the next leader since the protests in 2009, people were chanting in the streets “Mojtaba we hope you die. You’ll never become the next leader”.

‘So the rumours were there for decades that he’d be the next leader… But overall he’s a shadow.

‘Now the person who has never been officially in charge has suddenly consumed power and become the next leader of Iran at such a critical time.’

The Israeli military has already warned it will ‘pursue every successor’ of Ali Khamenei.

In ​a post on ​X in Farsi, the IDF said: ‘After neutralizing the tyrant Khamenei, the terrorist regime of Iran is attempting to rebuild itself and select a new leader.

‘We want to tell you that the hand of the State of Israel will continue to pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor.’

Mojtaba has already been wounded in the war, according to a report on Iranian state TV.

In one report on his ascension to Supreme Leader, it refers to him as being wounded in the war.

The anchor describes him as ‘janbaz’, or wounded by the enemy, in the ‘Ramadan war,’ which is how media in Iran refer to the current conflict.

It does not elaborate on how he was injured, although his wife and father were killed in Israeli strikes on Tehran.

An analyst on air later suggested Khamenei’s wounding could have been during his service in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, although the differing accounts could not be immediately reconciled. 

Mojtaba Khamenei’s potential impact on the escalating conflict in the Middle East was laid bare in the moments after his succession was confirmed, with videos showing regime supporters chanting his name and urging more strikes.

Large crowds in Tehran waved Iranian flags and shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar, Khamenei Rahbar’, meaning: ‘God is great, Khamenei is the leader.’

More ominous still, the Iranian military vowed to respond to any Israeli attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure by striking oil sites across the region – after Israel targeted reserves the night before.