Reuters Investigates - Assets of the Ayatollah Khamenei

Here at ATS the discussion of rich vs everyone-else comes up frequently. We all hear about rich folks taking advantage of the not-so-rich ... and about financial empires being built off the misery of others. It's been discussed here many times. And those discussions usually include people saying things like ... oh those nasty people in the west .. or ... the west has no values ... or .... western greed ... etc etc. But the truth is, greed is everywhere. Case in point - Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei who has been listed by Forbes magazine as the 21st most powerful person on the planet. Ayatollah Khamenei controls a massive financial empire worth almost 100 billion dollars, and it's all built on property seizures. The organization that seizes properties - "Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam" – Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam - started out as something to supposedly help people, but it ended up taking from them. (gee ... isn't that how it usually happens with government run projects? Yep). And the government has issued orders that whatever this organization does can't be questioned. How convenient for the thieves ....

Reuters Investigative Article - Ayatollah Khamenei Assets

Setad has become one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, though many Iranians, and the wider world, know very little about it. In the past six years, it has morphed into a business juggernaut that now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.

The organization's total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts. But Setad's holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion, Reuters has calculated. That estimate is based on an analysis of statements by Setad officials, data from the Tehran Stock Exchange and company websites, and information from the U.S. Treasury Department. Just one person controls that economic empire – Khamenei. As Iran's top cleric, he has the final say on all governmental matters...

How Setad came into those assets also mirrors how the deposed monarchy obtained much of its fortune - by confiscating real estate. A six-month Reuters investigation has found that Setad built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians: members of religious minorities like Vahdat-e-Hagh, who is Baha'i, as well as Shi'ite Muslims, business people and Iranians living abroad

There is no evidence that the Ayatollah is skimming the billions to make a plush lifestyle for himself. The 100 Billion Dollar powerhouse is just that ... a powerhouse. The more $$ it has, the more power it has. The Ayatollah's organization holds a court-ordered monopoly on taking property in the name of the supreme leader, and no one in the country is allowed to question it. It's illegal to question what this organization does or what it takes.

The organization started out with the intent of building schools and roads for impoverished areas. It was going to get the funds for this through the purchase and sale of 'abandoned land and buildings'. Obviously, it changed.

Ayatollah Khamenei Revealed to Run Business Empire Covering Everything from Oil to Ostrich Farming

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls a business empire worth around $95 billion (£59 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.

Sydney Morning Telegraph - Ayatollah Khameneis Billions

Under Khamenei, the organisation has 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.

The supreme leader, judges and parliament over the years have issued a series of bureaucratic edicts, constitutional interpretations and judicial decisions bolstering Setad.

"No supervisory organisation can question its property," said Naghi Mahmoudi, an Iranian lawyer who left Iran in 2010 and now lives in Germany.

MSN Canada - Dictators and their Wealth - Ayatollah Khamenei

The Grand Ayatollah likes to cultivate an image of austerity but receives major commissions from the Iranian oil and arms industries.

"Austere" "Devout" Ayatollah Is Secretly As Rich as the Shah

Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, secretly runs a financial empire that would give the Shah a run for his money. The business interests of Khamenei’s little-known organization, called Setad, include a dizzying array of properties, oil and gas holdings, telecommunications, even ostrich farming.

He was the one who was installed by the CIA or is that a different Ayatollah??

Power corrupts... I'm sure you're familiar with the maxim.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Its stories like this that confirm to me that scenarios like Israeli vs Iran or Obama vs Putin are just ruses used to conquer and divide. They're all the same douche bags, and they're all in it together.

originally posted by: RifRAAF
He was the one who was installed by the CIA or is that a different Ayatollah??

Power corrupts... I'm sure you're familiar with the maxim.

This is the Ayatollah who took the position of the prick that starved and left Iranian's in poverty for 26 years. In other words, the CIA puppet was ousted during the Iranian revolution. But with that, it's sketchy to say he has confiscated land in Iran...

The organization started in 1989 to "manage and sell properties abandoned in the chaotic years" after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Much of its proceeds were to go to assist war veterans, war widows "and the downtrodden.

Obviously more research needs to be done but it doesn't seem to be a case of simply confiscating land and property off Iranian's. If anything, it seems like a good thing if the above is correct. Also the Iranian's claim that this information has no basis and is incorrect.

Setad

originally posted by: DarknStormy
it's sketchy to say he has confiscated land in Iran...

Um .. no. It's well documented. Did you read the information?

The organization started out as a good thing and was only supposed to last two years. It was to take the unclaimed land and turn it into $$$ for the poor. But instead, it's lasted decades and it's accumulated almost 100 Billion $$ worth of questionable assets ... and it's not going to 'the poor'. At the same time, laws are in place that state that no one can question anything the organization does. It gets a complete free pass.

originally posted by: RifRAAF
Power corrupts... I'm sure you're familiar with the maxim.

Power and money. It's no different with this fella then with the money grubbers in the west. Well ... except that this fella has religion behind him. He can claim it's 'Allahs will' and that no one can question him ... and he can get away with building a 100 Billion $$$ empire ... which obviously isn't going to the poor like he claimed the organization was to do.

originally posted by: DarknStormy
the Iranian's claim that this information has no basis and is incorrect.

Yeah .. that's funny. The Iranian gov't can claim all it wants.
They are no more believable than any other.
Reuters did a good job investigating. Lots of smoke ... lots of fire ...

I wonder how many schools for girls they planned on building?

a reply to: FlyersFan
Yet what is the difference to the Christian fundamentalists in the US who have religion behind them?

Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that the land that I live in
Has God on its side...

I think you know how that quote finishes. Dont try to spin the corrupt actions by a CIA-puppet government into being a chest-thumping exercise in COINTELPRO.

originally posted by: RifRAAF
a reply to: FlyersFan
Yet what is the difference to the Christian fundamentalists in the US who have religion behind them?

Last I saw, the Christian fundamentalists who run those mega churches aren't worth 100 billion $$ and they aren't running a country. The Christian fundamentalists also are subjected to tax laws and have to expose what their books say. They don't have a 'free pass' from the government. They get people to buy into what they are selling ... and they get people to donate to them with free will donations. The 100 Billion that Ayatollah Khomeini presides over isn't from 'free will donations'. And it's not all from 'abandoned property' either.

Jimmy Swaggart - personal wealth at about 40 million.
T. D Jakes - personal wealth at about 150 million.

List of Richest Pastors Worldwide

originally posted by: tinner07
I wonder how many schools for girls they planned on building?

hopefully they wont be like the tax funded and christian church run Canadian residential schools...
now considered genocide

Khomeini was an agent for the West...

Khomeini's Background & His British Father...
...Furthermore he immediately tried to assassinate the highly-respected Ayatollah Shariatmadari, who, with Ayatollah Golpayegani, had in 1964 granted Khomeini the false title. They had agreed to allow Khomeini, then literally awaiting death on charges of treason, to be called an Ayatollah to save his life: it was forbidden to execute an Ayatollah. This took place in 1964 at the urging of the British Ambassador to Iran and Gen. Pakravan, when a face-saving legal reason had to be found not to hang Khomeini for treason. It is known that Pakravan had fought hard to avoid Khomeinis execution at that time.

Khomeini’s real father, William Richard Williamson, was born in Bristol, England, in 1872 of British parents and lineage. This detail is based on first-hand evidence from a former Iranian employee of the Anglo- Iranian Oil Company (later known as British Petroleum- BP), who worked with and met the key players of this saga. This fact was supported by the lack of a denial in 1979 by Col. Archie Chisholm, a BP political officer and former editor at The Financial Times, when interviewed on the subject at his home in County Cork, Ireland, by a British newspaper.

The then-78-year old Chisholm stated: I knew Haji [as Williamson was later known] well; he worked for me. He certainly went native but whether he is Khomeini’s father I could not say. Would not an outright, ridiculing denial have been the natural response, were there no truth to the British paternity? From someone who knew Haji [and thus the truth] well?

www.discoveringislam.org...
some would argue that Komeini is no different then the shaw...a big fat well paid western scam

a reply to: FlyersFan
They're not running a country? You keep telling yourself that and keep voting Republican!

The God-bothering crazies are as dangerous and corrupt no matter which country they come from!. Separation of church and state should no-longer be a goal, but a reality.

Keep your superstition away from my constitution!

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: RifRAAF
a reply to: FlyersFan
Yet what is the difference to the Christian fundamentalists in the US who have religion behind them?

Last I saw, the Christian fundamentalists who run those mega churches aren't worth 100 billion $$ and they aren't running a country. The Christian fundamentalists also are subjected to tax laws and have to expose what their books say. They don't have a 'free pass' from the government. They get people to buy into what they are selling ... and they get people to donate to them with free will donations. The 100 Billion that Ayatollah Khomeini presides over isn't from 'free will donations'. And it's not all from 'abandoned property' either.

Jimmy Swaggart - personal wealth at about 40 million.
T. D Jakes - personal wealth at about 150 million.

List of Richest Pastors Worldwide

Other toxic and preposterous lies: A 900-foot-tall Jesus appeared before him and commanded him to raise $120 million to build a hospital. The devil tried to strangle him in his bedroom, only to be driven away by his wife. Special holy water sprinkled on a billfold will bring prosperity. God told him he would return from the dead to rule over the Earth.

In addition to a legacy of fraud and theft, Roberts left us Oral Roberts University, a Christian educational institute that served as a playground for his son Richard, who ran it, and his wife. According to a 2007 lawsuit, Richard's wife spent school money to remodel their home 11 times in 14 years, employ her "underaged male" friends, run up $800 cell phone bills, spend $39,000 a pop on clothes at Chico's, and fly their daughter to Orlando for spring break on a private jet. The couple also allegedly forced professors and students to do their daughter's homework.

gawker.com...

can't say they aren't trying and wouldn't take over the country if they could get past the oil god

a reply to: FlyersFan

The first day of my college Economics 101 course the grad student teaching it told us the first law of economics.
It is very simple and easy to apply to human interactions: "Human greed is insatiable."

If you keep that in mind you can understand how most of humanity operates.

originally posted by: RifRAAF
They're not running a country?

No.

You keep telling yourself that and keep voting Republican!

The TV preachers aren't running the country. (And I voted Libertarian.)

The God-bothering crazies are as dangerous and corrupt no matter which country they come from!.

The preachers here in the USA are subject to laws. Jim Baker in prison proves that to be true. The Ayatollah in Iran is not subject to laws and has complete unquestioned power and money. Big difference.

Keep your superstition away from my constitution!

Oh stop it. It's not 'my superstition'.
I have said many times I'm for a SECULAR rule of law in the USA.

originally posted by: Danbones
can't say they aren't trying and wouldn't take over the country if they could get past the oil god

I have no doubt that the religious leadership of each denomination would love to run the country. But they do not. Secular rule of law keeps them in line. And they are subject to taxes and open books like everyone else. The same can't be said of Iran. The Ayatollah gets a free pass ... and gets 100 Billion $$$ of ill-gotten gains to use as his power base.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: Danbones
can't say they aren't trying and wouldn't take over the country if they could get past the oil god

I have no doubt that the religious leadership of each denomination would love to run the country. But they do not. Secular rule of law keeps them in line. And they are subject to taxes and open books like everyone else. The same can't be said of Iran. The Ayatollah gets a free pass ... and gets 100 Billion $$$ of ill-gotten gains to use as his power base.

Secular law is a Western ideology. Democratic governments also have ridiculous amounts of money. Either way really doesn't matter. The only difference is Iran doesn't go around obliterating countries to inherit more wealth.

How Setad came into those assets also mirrors how the deposed monarchy obtained much of its fortune - by confiscating real estate. A six-month Reuters investigation has found that Setad built its empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians: members of religious minorities like Vahdat-e-Hagh, who is Baha'i, as well as Shi'ite Muslims, business people and Iranians living abroad.

Jeez, sounds familiar doesn't it. Land grabbing thieves! A government in control of food, shelter and medicine is a government that will eventually learn the hard way. Don't mess with peoples' basic human rights, or any for that matter. Oh...hold on, my Obama-phone is ringing...

originally posted by: DarknStormy
The only difference is Iran doesn't go around obliterating countries to inherit more wealth.

Yes it does. It's a state sponsor of terrorism and it has it's dirty reach all over the planet ... just like everyone else. Iran isn't innocent. Not by a long shot.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: DarknStormy
The only difference is Iran doesn't go around obliterating countries to inherit more wealth.

Yes it does. It's a state sponsor of terrorism and it has it's dirty reach all over the planet ... just like everyone else. Iran isn't innocent. Not by a long shot.

Yeah, and America and Europe don't? Last I heard America were arming terrorists in Syria, are yous the only one's allowed to do it or something?