On a tree-lined street in north London, known as “Billionaire’s Row,” a clutch of mostly empty mansions sit behind tall hedges and blacked-out gates. As school children wander by, private guards in dark SUVs patrol outside. Behind the facades of these luxury homes lies a network stretching from Tehran to Dubai and Frankfurt. The ultimate ownership of these properties traces back, through layers of shell companies, to one of the most powerful men in the Middle East: Mojtaba Khamenei, the second-eldest son of Iran’s Supreme Leader.
The 56-year-old cleric, touted as a potential successor to his father, oversees a sprawling investment empire. While he refrains from putting assets in his own name, he has been directly involved in deals that stretch back at least as far as 2011. His financial power has embraced everything from Persian Gulf shipping to Swiss bank accounts and British luxury property worth in excess of £100 million ($138 million). Together, this web of firms has helped channel funds—by some estimates in the billions of dollars—into Western markets, despite US sanctions imposed on him in 2019.
This empire includes prime real estate in several of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods, one house costing £33.7 million when it was bought in 2014, a villa in an area dubbed the “Beverly Hills of Dubai,” and upscale European hotels from Frankfurt to Mallorca. Funds for these transactions have been routed through accounts at banks in the UK, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the United Arab Emirates. The funds are reported to originate primarily from Iranian oil sales.
None of the assets are listed directly in Khamenei’s name. Instead, many of the purchases appear in the name of an Iranian businessman, Ali Ansari, who has been sanctioned by the UK. According to a Western intelligence assessment, Ansari has been vital to the deals.
Iran’s state media depicts the Supreme Leader and his family as living an austere and pious life, consistent with a revolutionary movement that toppled a monarch in the name of the poor. There is little indication the family has used these foreign assets to fund lavish lifestyles. However, the hidden fortune of the younger Khamenei conflicts with that promoted image, especially amidst rising poverty and widespread unrest in Iran. Anger directed at high levels of economic corruption in the regime often targets the “a’aghazadeh,” a pejorative used for the children of the elite accused of amassing great wealth through political connections.
Widely regarded as a powerful behind-the-scenes figure with close ties to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mojtaba Khamenei has largely avoided the public spotlight. His growing influence coincides with intense debate over who will replace his 86-year-old father as Iran’s next absolute leader, a question that comes at a time when Tehran appears strategically weaker than it has in decades.
