Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran's recently deceased leader Ali Khamenei and a senior figure in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), owns two luxury apartments directly overlooking the Israeli embassy in London, raising serious national security concerns. Experts have described the situation as a “serious security breach."
The sixth and seventh floor apartments in Kensington, west London-purchased in 2014 and 2016 through a front man-sit less than 50 metres behind the embassy building. Security specialists warn the location could allow surveillance of staff and visitors, including audio capture of garden conversations and potentially even extracting speech from inside the building. Wireless networks could also be vulnerable to hacking from such proximity.
The flats, valued at £35.7 million together, include servants’ quarters and are near Kensington Palace. They are part of a wider property portfolio Khamenei has acquired through intermediaries, including 11 mansions in Hampstead worth hundreds of millions of pounds, purchased via shell companies registered in the Isle of Man. Bloomberg’s year-long investigation suggests these purchases were funded by Iran’s sanction-busting oil program.
The revelations come amid arrests in London of four men suspected of spying for Iran. They are believed to have monitored Jewish locations, including synagogues, and individuals, with six others arrested in Harrow for aiding and abetting but not linked to plots.
Roger Macmillan, a counter-terrorism expert, said the Kensington apartments “are not a property portfolio-they’re a permanent surveillance platform." The flats, along with Khamenei’s Hampstead holdings, are now blocked from sale by Treasury sanctions imposed on Ali Ansari, the front man who purchased them, accused of financing the IRGC.
Most of these properties are thought to lie empty, several derelict, but are heavily guarded with photography prohibited due to embassy security. The Israeli embassy declined to comment on the matter, while Transparency International warned that the failure to defend against money laundering in the UK has “national security implications," leaving the financial system open to hostile actors.
Ansari has denied any links to Iran or the IRGC and intends to challenge the sanctions in court. Meanwhile, the presence of Khamenei’s apartments so close to the Israeli embassy remains a stark symbol of potential espionage risks in London’s heart.