The son of Iran’s slain supreme leader owns two luxury apartments in London overlooking the Israeli embassy, according to a news probe into his assets. They are just part of a substantial overseas property network reported to be controlled by Mojtaba Khamenei.
Mojtaba was elected as the new Supreme Leader of Iran last night, just a week after his father Ali Khamenei was killed in Israeli air strikes.
A year-long Bloomberg investigation found that he directs a significant overseas real-estate network through intermediaries, with no assets appearing directly in his name.
The portfolio includes other UK properties and upscale hotels in other European countries, with funding routed through financial institutions via shell companies.
Mojtaba is reported to own the high-end Kensington properties through associates. The apartments, located on the sixth and seventh floors of a building close to Kensington Palace, are believed to be worth more than BD25 million (£50m).
The properties, which also include servants’ quarters on the ground floor, sit just a short distance from the Israeli embassy.
According to the investigation by Bloomberg, Mojtaba, 56, has owned the apartments since 2014. The probe also claims he controls a much wider portfolio.
The investigation found that 11 mansions on Hampstead’s Bishops Avenue – often referred to as Billionaire’s Row – were purchased through a front man and an Isle of Man shell company.
Bloomberg reported that the Iranian cleric has amassed property assets worth hundreds of millions of dinars around the world, with the purchases allegedly funded through Iran’s sanction-busting oil programme.
Together, the Kensington apartments and the Hampstead properties are estimated to be worth around BD100m (£200m). Several of the homes on Bishops Avenue are believed to be empty. The Kensington flats sit on Palace Green, an exclusive private road guarded around the clock by police and private security.
Photography on the street is heavily restricted because of the security concerns surrounding nearby diplomatic buildings and the area’s ultra-wealthy residents.
According to the Bloomberg investigation, the apartments are formally owned through a trusted associate. A lawyer representing the man, rejected the claims.
Mojtaba has never run for office or been subjected to a public vote, but for decades has been a highly influential figure in the inner circle of the Supreme Leader, cultivating deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Mojtaba was born on September 8, 1969 in Mashhad. He studied theology in Qom and fought as a young volunteer during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s – credentials that still carry weight within the revolutionary elite.
Yet his authority has largely come from proximity to power rather than his religious stature. He holds the rank of hojatoleslam, a mid-level clerical rank below that of an ayatollah.
His father was not an ayatollah either when he became the country’s leader in 1989, and the law was amended to accommodate him, so a similar compromise may also be possible for Mojtaba.
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