Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion – a sum exceeding the value of his oil-rich nation’s current annual petroleum exports – a six-month Reuters investigation shows.
The little-known organization, called Setad, is one of the keys to the Iranian leader’s enduring power and now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.
Setad has built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians – members of religious minorities, Shi’ite Muslims, business people and Iranians living abroad.
The Reuters investigation, which is detailed in a three-part series, documents how Setad has amassed a giant portfolio of real estate by claiming in Iranian courts, sometimes falsely, that the properties are abandoned.
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