Apadana Telegraph

Mohammad Mokhber, the first Vice President of Islamic Republic regime in Iran, was appointed as acting president of the Islamic Republic after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in the country’s northwest. He is expected to serve as caretaker president for some 50 days before mandatory presidential “elections” in Iran.

Despite his low-key public profile, Mokhber has held prominent positions with in the country’s power structure, particularly in its bonyads, or charitable foundations. Those groups were fueled by assets seized after 1979 Islamic Revolution, particularly those previously associated with the Shah of Iran or those in his government.

Mokhber oversaw a bonyad known as Setād-e-Ejrā’i-Farmān-e-Imām, or the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, or EIKO, referring to the late Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini.

The U.S. Treasury said the organization oversaw billions of dollars in assets as “a business juggernaut under the direct supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that has a stake in nearly every sector of the Iranian economy, including energy, telecommunications, and financial services.”

As the head of EIKO, Mokhber oversaw an effort to make a COVID-19 vaccine during the height of the pandemic, pledging to make tens of millions of doses. Only a fraction of that ever made it to the public, without explanation.

He also worked at the Mostazafan Foundation, another bonyad that’s a major conglomerate that manages the country’s mega-projects and businesses. While there, he found himself entangled in a bitter legal dispute between mobile phone service providers Turkcell and South Africa’s MTN over potentially entering the Iranian market.

Mokhber was listed by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as a Specially Designated National (SDN) on January 13, 2021, just before President Trump left office.