... Twenty-five years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led the revolution that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a dozen families with religious ties control much of Iranâs $110 billion gross domestic product and shape its politics, industries and finances, says Ray Takeyh, a professor and director of studies at National Defense Universityâs Near East and South Asia Center in Washington and coauthor of The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam. The Rafsanjanis -- who have investments in pistachio farming, real estate, automaking and a private airline worth a total of $1 billion -- are among the best connected and most influential of the families, Takeyh says.
Rafsanjani, 69, has wielded power since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, when he served on the Revolutionary Council under Khomeini. Mohsen Hashemi, 43, Rafsanjaniâs oldest son, heads a $2 billion project to build Tehranâs subway. Yasser Hashemi, 32, the youngest son, runs a horse farm north of Tehran in the exclusive suburb of Lavasan, where an acre of land costs $2 million. Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, 34, the son whose contact with Statoil led to the police search, was a director at National Iranian Gas Co. and heads the unit that develops compressed natural gas for cars.
"The whole Iranian economy is set up to benefit the privileged few," Takeyh says. "Rafsanjani is the most adept, the most notorious and the most privileged." ... many details in the article 
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