In January 2026, Bloomberg published a year-long investigation into a transnational corporate and property network whose ultimate beneficial ownership, according to sources and a Western intelligence assessment cited in the report, leads to Mojtaba Khamenei — the second son of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a politically influential but formally unelected figure within the regime’s inner circle.

The trail runs from Tehran and Dubai to London, Frankfurt and Mallorca. In London, more than a dozen properties — including a £33.7 million house on The Bishops Avenue — are linked through UK filings to Birch Ventures Ltd., an Isle of Man company naming Ali Ansari, an Iranian construction magnate and former principal shareholder of the collapsed Ayandeh Bank, as beneficial owner. The same web leads to hospitality assets in Germany and Spain, including the Hilton Frankfurt Gravenbruch and a luxury resort in Mallorca, held through layered offshore structures tied to Ansari and UK-based solicitor Moris Mashali. Acquisition funds moved through banks in the UK, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the UAE, including transfers via Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, with much of the capital traced to Iranian oil sales routed through Emirati intermediaries.

None of the property documents list Mojtaba Khamenei directly. The assets appear under Ansari or offshore entities linked to him. Ansari was sanctioned by the United Kingdom in October 2025 for financially supporting the IRGC, but he is not designated by the EU or the United States.

The timing is not incidental. The Bloomberg investigation surfaced in the aftermath of a nationwide protest wave that began in late December 2025 and was met with a violent crackdown that left thousands dead. The repression was carried out by security institutions embedded in the same power structure that benefits from opaque financial networks.

On January 30, 2026, OFAC moved on several fronts at once. It designated Eskandar Momeni Kalagari, Iran’s Interior Minister, who oversees the Law Enforcement Forces accused by Washington of mass killings and enforced disappearances during the ongoing unrest, along with a number of IRGC provincial commanders under Executive Order 13553. In a parallel step, Treasury added Babak Morteza Zanjani — the oil trader once sentenced to death for embezzling billions in oil revenues before his sentence was commuted in 2024 — saying he has returned to large-scale economic activity and is financing........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)