An Iranian businessman sanctioned by the US this week for allegedly financing a massive oil-smuggling network owns three flats, worth a combined £25 million, next to a synagogue in Knightsbridge, property records show.
On Tuesday, Hossein Ghorbani Zahed was sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) as part of a wider programme targeting the “illicit shipping empire” of Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, an oil magnate and the son of the former Iranian defence minister Ali Shamkhani.
Shamkhani was a former IRGC commander and adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and was killed in the February 28 strike on Khamenei’s office.
Zahed, 43, owns three adjacent flats in London across from Hyde Park in the luxury Knightsbridge Apartments, situated on Lowndes Street, sitting just minutes from a synagogue, Harrods department store and Buckingham Palace.
The apartments are owned through Golden Nest Group, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, of which Zahed – who also holds a Dominican passport – is listed as the beneficial owner.
The firm purchased the luxury apartments in April 2023, according to land registry documents first obtained by Transparency International UK and shared with a US media organisation, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Golden Net bought one flat in the development in April 2023 for £12.5 million and two more a year later for £5.7 million and £12.5 million.
Ofac sanctioned Golden Net this week as part of its crackdown against the Islamic Republic.
US authorities accused Zahed of being one of several “primary financiers for Shamkhani’s network, providing it with exchange house services including access to foreign currency and shell companies based outside of Iran”.
The US Treasury said Zahed is “essential for the network’s ability to trade in sanctioned goods and recoup the proceeds”.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Shamkhani network is one of the Iranian regime’s "most profitable engines”.
“The Treasury is shutting down the financial infrastructure that allows the regime to continue its threats to US national security and global shipping,” Bessent added.
All property and interests in property in the US jurisdiction that belong to the designated individuals and entities are now frozen, and American citizens and companies are banned from engaging in transactions with them.
Zahed told the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project that he bought the properties “just for myself” and funded the purchases through proceeds from a zinc and copper mine he owns in Iran, which he said was “selling to the local market”.
“I don’t have any relation with [Shamkhani] and I didn’t see him for three years. Yes, I travelled with him, [he] was friendly,” he said.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.