By Ansarul Haque | March 15, 2026
Mojtaba Khamenei, who assumed the position of Supreme Leader of Iran following his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran on February 28, has been quietly accumulating one of the most audacious secret property empires in the Western world — a network of shell companies, offshore accounts, and proxy businessmen that allowed him to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into London real estate, European hotels, and Dubai villas, all while subject to U.S. sanctions imposed on him since 2019.
The Israeli Loan No One Was Meant to Find
At the heart of a bombshell investigation published on March 12 by Israeli watchdog outlet Shomrim, in partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), is a financial transaction that strikes at the core of the Iranian regime’s declared ideology. In 2013, a shell company registered in the Isle of Man received a £36 million loan from Topland Jupiter Limited, a subsidiary of the Topland Group founded by Sol and Eddie Zakay, two Israeli-born brothers originally from Ramat Gan. The funds were used to acquire properties on Bishops Avenue in north London — the famous “Billionaires’ Row” — with 12 luxury homes pledged as collateral. The loan was fully repaid by September 2015, but documents confirmed that the Iranian side was fully aware of the source of the financing.
Kensington Apartments Overlooking the Israeli Embassy
Among the most striking disclosures are two ultra-luxury apartments in the Kensington district of London, located on Palace Green — the very same street as the Israeli embassy in the United Kingdom. The two apartments, on the sixth and seventh floors of the same building, were acquired through intermediaries in 2014 and 2016 and are believed to be worth approximately $40 million. Counter-terrorism specialist Roger Macmillan, a former director of security at Iran International, described the proximity as alarming, saying the apartments offer a “direct line of sight” into the back of the Israeli embassy from less than 50 metres away, calling it “a permanent surveillance platform” and “a serious security breach”. The revelation came just days after four Iranian and British-Iranian men were arrested in London under suspicion of surveilling locations and individuals linked to the Jewish community.
The Man Behind the Curtain
The operational brain of the network is Ali Aliakbar Ansari, a 57-year-old Iranian construction magnate who has known Khamenei since the Iran-Iraq War era. A Financial Times investigation published in January 2026, drawing on corporate filings across multiple jurisdictions, identified Ansari as the primary proxy who built a European property portfolio worth approximately €400 million. His acquisitions span London, Dubai, Frankfurt, Mallorca, Paris, and even a penthouse in Toronto’s Four Seasons Private Residences, which was sold in 2020. The funds were routed through bank accounts in the UK, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the United Arab Emirates, with the bulk of the wealth originating from Iranian oil revenues. Ansari has denied having any financial or personal relationship with Khamenei and has said he intends to challenge the sanctions imposed on him.
Sanctions, Arrests, and International Investigations
Ansari’s European operation ground to a halt in October 2025 when the UK government designated him a “corrupt Iranian banker and businessman” for financially supporting the IRGC, imposing a full asset freeze, travel ban, and director disqualification. Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer stated at the time that the UK would “not tolerate threats from the IRGC”. Following the Bloomberg investigation, authorities in Germany and Canada opened their own inquiries into the network’s property dealings, and Cyprus announced it was examining how Ansari had obtained and used his Cypriot citizenship.
A Regime’s Hypocrisy Laid Bare
The totality of the findings presents a portrait of breathtaking contradiction — the man who now leads a theocratic regime that has publicly declared hostility toward Israel and Western financial systems for decades had his London property empire partly financed by an Israeli-founded firm, while his apartments surveill the Israeli embassy in Kensington. The network operated seamlessly through the very Western banking and legal infrastructure that the Iranian regime publicly condemns, routing oil money through Swiss banks, Liechtenstein accounts, Isle of Man shell companies, and Luxembourg-registered entities. As Khamenei steps into the most powerful seat in Iran, investigators, Western governments, and intelligence agencies are already piecing together the full architecture of a financial empire that was never supposed to be found.