(Even more shocking: Reuters did a news story)
Obama hero Ayatollah Khamenei controls massive financial empire built on property seizures; amasses $95 billion personal fortune:
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 amassed a giant portfolio of real estate by claiming in Iranian courts, sometimes falsely, that the properties are abandoned. The organization now 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.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1
