According to media reports, an Iranian businessman is said to have built up a property empire in Europe. This includes luxury hotels in Germany. Traces of the company are now said to lead to the son of the slain spiritual leader Ali Khamenei. He could become his successor.
Following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the succession at the head of the Islamic Republic remains unresolved.
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No new Supreme Leader has yet been formally named. Behind the scenes, however, Mojtaba Khamenei — the 56-year-old son of the assassinated Supreme Leader — has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed his father, though no formal announcement has been made.
Khamenei has never run for office or been subjected to a public vote, but for decades has been a highly influential figure in the inner circle of the Supreme Leader, cultivating deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Critics have noted that a father-to-son succession would be politically sensitive in the Islamic Republic.
Khamenei himself had reportedly opposed his son's candidacy, with an Iranian source close to his office telling Reuters in 2024 that the leader did not want to witness a return to hereditary rule, which many Iranians view as undermining the 1979 revolution that ousted the US-backed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Mojtaba Khamenei is also reported to control a substantial overseas property network. A year-long Bloomberg investigation found that he directs a significant overseas real-estate network through intermediaries, with no assets appearing directly in his name.
The portfolio includes luxury London properties, a villa in Dubai and upscale hotels in Frankfurt and Mallorca, with funding routed largely from Iranian oil revenues through financial institutions in the UK, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the UAE via shell companies.
Frankfurt hotels and a reported €400m European portfolio
A key holding identified by Bloomberg is the Hilton Frankfurt Gravenbruch, a five-star hotel in Germany's financial capital.
Corporate filings show the hotel has been owned since 2011 through entities tied to an associate of Iranian businessman Ali Ansari and was brought under Hilton's management in 2024.
Frankfurt officials have publicly questioned how Iran-linked capital has flowed into the city's hospitality sector.
Specifically, the owner is the Iranian multimillionaire Ali Ansari, who is said to act as the liaison for Khamenei's son. Ansari denies any connection to the Revolutionary Guards or to Mojtaba Khamenei.
Ansari, an Iranian construction magnate, was sanctioned by the UK in October 2025.
None of the documents seen by Bloomberg list assets directly in Khamenei's name; instead, many of the purchases appear in Ansari's name.
In a statement through his lawyer at the time, Ansari said he "strongly denies" any financial or personal relationship with Mojtaba Khamenei and noted his intention to challenge the sanctions imposed by the UK.
How big is his property empire in Europe?
A separate Financial Times investigation, based on corporate filings, found that Ansari had built a European property portfolio worth approximately €400 million.
The assets include luxury properties across several European countries, ranging from a golf resort in Mallorca to a ski hotel in Austria, structured through a complex network of offshore companies registered in jurisdictions including Luxembourg, St Kitts and Nevis, Austria, Germany and Spain.
Background and clerical standing
Mojtaba Khamenei was born on 8 September 1969 in Mashhad.
He studied theology in Qom and fought as a young volunteer during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s — credentials that still carry weight within the revolutionary elite.
Yet his authority has largely come from proximity to power rather than his religious stature. CBS News
He holds the rank of hojatoleslam, a mid-level clerical rank below that of an ayatollah.
His father was not an ayatollah either when he became the country's leader in 1989, and the law was amended to accommodate him, so a similar compromise may also be possible for Mojtaba.
Like his father, he wears a black turban, which traditionally signals lineage to the Prophet Mohammed.