Masoumeh Ebtekar’s Son’s: Inheritors of Corruption Living in America
Masoumeh Ebtekar was introduced to the Iranian public in 1979. Then, she appeared on television and radio broadcasts as the mouthpiece for students holding American embassy staff hostage. Later, she became a notable public official and Reformist party insider. Along the way, Ebtekar amassed a wealth of government connections which she translated into massive wealth and influence for her family. Accordingly, her sons, Taha and Eissa Hashmi, grew up to inherit the corrupt networks of their parents, while also living an extravagant life in the country their mother once held hostage.
Ebtekar’s children grew up in the shadow of their mother’s influence. Both have lived lives made possible by the power, influence, and resources of their parents. Eissa spent nearly a decade receiving degrees in psychology at American institutions, living for extended periods in the country his mother so opposed.
In 2015, Taha was arrested for embezzling government funds in Umria. When local officers attempted to take him into custody, his mother’s bodyguards prevented them from doing so. In 2019, an Iranian credit institution claimed that Taha owed more than 150 million USD in debt. This was at the time of his mother’s Vice Presidency, and media reports claimed that Taha was on his way to working off the debt, by managing acquisitions for her office with profits to the tune of 120%. This was helped by the family’s longstanding tendency to bring partners into government projects with no written agreements or legal documents.
Masoumeh Ebtekar is neither the anti-American revolutionary nor the reformist her public persona has claimed to be. Her sons are evidence of this–while one is living leisurely in the United States, the other is engaged in decades-old networks of government corruption. In either case, Ebtekar and her family are yet another example of corruption, fraud, and hypocrisy in the Islamic Republic’s elite.
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