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How Ayatollah ran $95 BILLION business empire built by seizing thousands of Iranians’ properties then selling them for profit

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15605827/How-Ayatollah-ran-95BILLION-business-empire-built-seizing-thousands-Iranians-properties-selling-profit.html

Excerpt:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei left behind a corrupt and repressive legacy, following his assassination on February 28.

.....His 36 years and eight months leading Iran resulted in the mass repression of women, the slaughter of civilians and the funding of terror groups including Hamas and Hezbollah.

But among the most wicked things he did was to amass a business empire worth an estimated $95billion by systematically seizing thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians.

Khamenei’s business empire was held under Setad, a little-known organisation set up by Ruhollah Khomeini just before his death.

Its full name in Persian is ‘Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam’ - Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam.

It was one of the keys to the now-dead Iranian leader’s power and holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

A Reuters investigation in 2013 found Setad amassed a giant portfolio of real estate by claiming in Iranian courts, sometimes falsely, that the properties are abandoned.

The organization holds a court-ordered monopoly on taking property in the name of the supreme leader, and regularly sells the seized properties at auction or seeks to extract payments from the original owners.

Under Khamenei, the organization expanded its corporate holdings, buying stakes in dozens of Iranian companies, both private and public, with the stated goal of creating an Iranian conglomerate to boost the country’s economic growth.

Setad’s total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts. Reuters estimated it at around $95billion, made up of about $52billion in real estate and $43billion in corporate holdings.

While there is no evidence that Khamenei used Setad to enrich himself, it did empower him. Through Setad, Khamenei had at his disposal financial resources whose value rivals the holdings of the shah, the Western-backed monarch who was overthrown in 1979.

.....On top of the wealth accrued under Setad, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba has amassed a vast portfolio that includes mega-mansions in London, an exclusive villa in Dubai and several luxury European hotels.

A year-long investigation into the 56-year-old’s foreign investments has revealed the full eyewatering extent of his sprawling wealth - which touches Persian Gulf shipping, Swiss bank accounts and luxury property - as well as the complex network that has allowed him to evade western sanctions imposed on him in 2019.

According to the US Treasury Department, sanctions were imposed because he represented the Supreme Leader in ‘an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position’.

Mojtaba was found to have worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force, as well as be connected to the Basij, a religious militia affiliated with the Guards ‘to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives’.

.....According to research by Bloomberg, Mojtaba’s name never appears on the multiple assets he owns - which are acquired through a spider network of shell companies, middle men and bank accounts held in the UK, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), through deals that stretch back to 2011.

The shell companies and intermediaries have been established across a wide geographical spread covering the UAE, Isle of Man, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Europe.

In the UK alone, Mojtaba - considered to be one of the most powerful men in the Middle East and tipped by supporters to succeed his father - is said to own a string of more than a dozen mansions worth in excess of £100million, according to insiders.

His portfolio includes a house in The Bishops Avenue, dubbed London’s ‘Billionaires’ Row’, which was purchased for £33.7million in 2014.

.....As for the funding of this substantial portfolio, Mojtaba is believed to have siphoned off profit from Iranian oil sales, before funneling it through his opaque network to evade international sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran’s military and political operations.

The wealth accrued under the Khamenei name stands in stark contrast to the long-deteriorating economy of Iran, and the effect this had on its 93 million people

Sobieski Good article..... The arrogant, rich, and Powerful. "Who buy up all the houses until there is no one left in the land..."

This Is How the Islamic Republic Falls

snip...."The Muqawama is at once the Islamic Republic’s greatest source of resilience—and the engine of its unraveling. Muqawama is an Arabic word that means “resistance.” The idea, like the word, has been loaned to Persian as “moghavemat,” though it is often pronounced in Iran in the original Arabic.

And that translation, “resistance,” doesn’t begin to cover the term’s meaning or significance. It is something vast, a comprehensive theory of war, of history, of suffering, and of victory. “Resistance,” when used by leaders of Iran or Hezbollah or Hamas or the Houthis, refers to a sustained, never-ending campaign of violence accompanied by a willingness to absorb catastrophic levels of damage.

It is the sacralization of that violence—and of the sacrifice that it entails. As the damage sustained to one’s own polity grows, so the sanctity and religious meaning grows with it.

Muqawama is a deliberate inversion of the logic of conventional strategic thinking where damage inflicted on the resistance is a validation, and destruction is not defeat, but devotion. And sacrifice, sanctified by God, is the ultimate tool available to the weak against the strong.

To understand why bombing Iran or moving battleships close to its shores has never been and never will be sufficient to bring this regime to heel—though these are emphatically part of the kind of campaign that would—you have to understand where this idea came from, what it actually argues, and, most urgently, why it is now collapsing from within."

snip......"Understanding all of this reshapes the strategic question entirely. The question is not whether to strike Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure; that is necessary and inevitable. The question is whether strikes alone can accomplish anything durable, or whether they will simply give the regime another martyrdom narrative to hide behind.

The Muqawama was designed to absorb military punishment and convert it into moral capital. Every bomb that falls without a corresponding collapse of the regime’s credibility is a bomb the regime can point to and say: See how they hate us, see how we suffer and endure, see how we are the true heirs of Hussein. Military strikes must be embedded in a broader campaign to make each blow land as evidence of hypocrisy rather than evidence of Western aggression.

That means, first, the pragmatic instruments of financial strangulation—not as a background measure but as a primary weapon. The IRGC is structured less like a military and more like a multinational conglomerate. It controls the majority of Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure, operates shadow banking networks, and funds its proxies through Hawala money transfer systems that bypass conventional banking. Hezbollah runs hospitals and schools—not out of generosity but to purchase political loyalty. Designate the entire Muqawama axis as a transnational criminal organization. Intercept ships. Blacklist banks. Disrupt currency auctions in Iraq that launder IRGC revenue. Force the regime to choose, again and again, between funding its war machine and feeding its people—and make sure Iranians know who is making that choice." (Snip.....the final paragraph)

The Islamic Republic has been a catastrophe for Iran, for its economy, its culture, its talent, its women, its future. The brightest Persian minds are either refugees or martyrs. The regime has spent 47 years calling itself a revolution and produced nothing but a more bloody and totalitarian apparatus of control than any that country had ever known. It is not, as some Western analysts lazily suggest, simply irrational or backward. It is a sophisticated ideological project that has stolen the worst ideas of the 20th century—Marxist-Leninist vanguardism, Fanonian redemptive violence, Maoist people’s war—and fused them to a version of Shia theology that previous generations of Shia would not recognize.

And it is failing. The Muqawama has lost its moral immunity in every polity that was supposed to be its base. It has no answer to the one thing its subjects have finally decided they want: a life. Not martyrdom. Not the grave. A coffee shop, a future, a country that works.

When Khomeini said that putting “Iran first” was idolatry, he was trying to conscript an entire civilization into an endless war it never agreed to fight. The protesters shouting “My life for Iran” are refusing the conscription. They are not just demanding a change of government. They are demanding the death of an ideology—because they understand that the ideology and the country’s survival are incompatible.

The West’s task is not to save Iran. Iranians are already trying to do just that, at enormous personal cost, with extraordinary courage. The task is to make sure the regime cannot massacre its way back to stability. And to make sure that when it falls, what follows is not another iteration of the same.

The humble, as the Psalmist wrote and the Quran agreed, shall inherit the land. In Iran, they are already reaching for it."

Worth reading the entire article

Texas Fights Back: Christian Heroes Stand Up Against Sharia Creep In Schools

https://rairfoundation.com/texas-fights-back-christian-heroes-stand-up-against/

Excerpt:

Republican member of the Texas State Board of Education (District 11) Brandon Hall, who is also a Christian pastor and a seventh-generation North Texan, gave a no-holds-barred speech in defiance of CAIR while testifying at the SBOE. He made a point of not accepting the Jihadist agenda being forced on our children.

Hall schools CAIR
“You are here representing CAIR… Do you have a volunteer role with CAIR or a paid role?” Hall asked during the testimony.

Shaimaa Zayan, who represented CAIR at the meeting, responded that she was paid.

“So, you’re here being paid to testify on behalf of… you’re a professional, and in your opinion, your group would purport itself to represent Muslims around the country and in Texas. Do you believe… we’re looking at what to include in the TEAC’s content. Should we teach that there have been 70,000 terrorist attacks worldwide motivated by religious beliefs, specifically those in the Quran?” Hall asked – TEAC stands for Teacher Education Accreditation Council.

“And for example, in Surah 9:29 that says, ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah in the last day, nor comply with what Allah and his messenger had forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth from among those who are given the scripture, until they pay the [jizya] tax, willingly submit, fully humbled.’ Should we teach students that important piece of history?” he unflinchingly grilled her.

She deflected and dishonestly shot back, “There is no single verse in the Quran that asks Muslims to fight people based on their faith. It’s taken… out of context.”

.....And… so, I think it’s important that we teach students about a major org religion in the context. And I was also curious, do you think that would be important context, or just for students to know real history that the founder of Islam, Muhammad, married a six-year-old girl, and consummated that marriage at the age of nine? Her name was Aisha. Do you think that would also be an important piece of context for our students?” Hall asked.

Someone called a point of order, saying they didn’t see how this related to TEACs. She was told that TEACs referenced religion.

Hall, to his credit, would not let it go, but Zayan simply kept deflecting and would not answer his questions.

.....Again, the head of the meeting claimed they had consulted with legal counsel and that she could testify since she has a First Amendment right in this context because it was a public hearing. The reasoning did not appear to be a solid legal argument, but instead, one to protect the board from a lawsuit from CAIR.

Hall was not having any of it: “Okay, I won’t listen to them pushing Sharia in our schools.”

He proceeded to get up and walk out in protest at that point as the representative from CAIR started speaking concerning children’s history curricula, where the organization wants Islam, and by default, Sharia and the Muslim Brotherhood, represented.

.....Following Hall’s impressive take-down of CAIR’s representative, another Texan Christian, State Board of Education warrior Julie Pickren (District 7), joined the fight. She laid it out clearly what is going on with the Islamic indoctrination of our kids.

“Howdy, Texas. So, today, we had the foreign terrorist organization testify before the Texas State Board of Education. Again, the Council on American Muslim Relations… which Governor Abbott has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Which the FBI has said is the face of the Muslim Brotherhood, another terrorist organization,” Pickren opened up by saying.

She went on to share the demand letter presented by Zayan, who claimed she is the operations manager for CAIR.

Teach that 1/3 of ALL slaves in America were Muslim, enslaved, and killed because of their Muslim faith.
Erase the Mayflower Compact.
Eliminate Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day.
Cease Thanksgiving – including President George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation and prayer.
Teach that the Alamo was influenced by Islam and honors Islamic architecture.
Teach fictional “Muslim contributions” as part of America’s and Texas’s founding.
Pickren slammed the demands, “They’re going to hit this big, beautiful wall right here… this beautiful red, white, and blue wall! This is a HARD NO!”

“We’re going to teach Christopher Columbus. We’re going to teach the 10 Commandments. We’re going to teach Thanksgiving. We’re going to teach George Washington’s Thanksgiving prayer. And we are certainly NOT going to teach that the Alamo was designed and built to honor Islam!” she vowed.
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Need more fighters like these two CAIR and their minions are pushing their lies and trying to reqrite history.