Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam (Setad) began by managing seized properties after the 1979 revolution and grew into a vast wealth-generating machine linked to the Supreme Leader and family, with holdings across real estate, telecoms, health, and more.

The IRGC runs a wide-ranging business empire—oil, transportation, banking, telecommunications, agriculture, and real estate—with tens of billions in contract value and operates bonyads that historically dominated a large share of Iran’s GDP.

Iran’s ordinary citizens are collapsing economically, facing near 89% inflation, shortages, and blackouts, with an estimated 32-40 million people living below the absolute poverty line.

The regime’s power rests on a nexus of state control, military-linked enterprises, and wealth tied to the leader’s family, while ordinary Iranians face economic decline and eroding accountability that deepens elite entrenchment.

The IRGC and its networks profit from black-market activity and sanctions-busting smuggling, producing multi-billion-dollar annual profits and enabling state-aligned entities to bypass economic isolation.

Setad operates with minimal transparency, avoids taxes, lacks parliamentary oversight, and uses shell companies and frontmen to control assets at home and abroad, including in Spain, the UK, Venezuela, Syria, and the UAE.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s wealth is estimated at up to several hundred billion dollars, with his son Mojtaba reportedly steering a $3 billion European and Middle Eastern empire, though official documents do not reflect ownership.

Despite broad hardship, regime hardliners continue to amass wealth, backed by control of state resources and institutions, even as leadership publicly promotes austerity.