The Kleptocracy Initiative

A @HudsonInstitute project on how authoritarian corruption is reshaping global security. Follow KI for the latest news, research and analysis.

[The Kleptocracy Initiative @KleptocracyIntv]

“Corruption spurs revolutions, enables extremist groups and fuels civil wars.

Combating corruption is not just about good governance, it's about maintaining peace and security.”

Our ⁦@HudsonInstitute Walter P. Stern chair ⁩@NikkiHaley⁩ in 2018. https://t.co/XPaacTT9ny

[Mike @Doranimated]

Meet the niece of deceased Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani—and learn something about a regime that lives in two worlds at once.

Marco Rubio has (yes!) terminated the legal permanent resident status of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter. Her husband has also been barred from entering the United States.

Soleimani Afshar was an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime while living in the United States—leading a lifestyle that, in Iran, can get a woman jailed.

Her posts praised attacks on American forces, endorsed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and repeated regime slogans, including denunciations of the United States as the “Great Satan.” She also publicly supported Iran’s new Supreme Leader.

At the same time, she documented a comfortable lifestyle in Los Angeles on her now-deleted Instagram account.

[Zineb Riboua @zriboua]

My latest for @nypost on the regime change question.

Start with a basic fact: Iran is a revolutionary state. Its survival depends on three pillars — an ideology, a patronage network and a coercive apparatus drawing legitimacy from a founding idea. To bring such a system down, all three must fail simultaneously.
And Iran was already decomposing when Operation Epic Fury began.

https://t.co/NgbTjjLZMk

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Excellent. The spoiled spouses and brats of America’s adversaries are not welcome here.

Seize their wealth and send them back to live like the people they stole it from.

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Fascinating new study of nepotism in Russia finds that the state is increasingly staffed by just a few families.

“Putin himself has more relatives on the public payroll than any Russian ruler since Czar Nicholas II.”
https://t.co/DQBuaoNG45

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Unless the Iranian regime's illicit financial networks are dismantled, its capacity for terror, repression, and corruption will survive defeat on the battlefield.

In @dcexaminer, I explain how and why the regime must not only be decapitated but defunded.
https://t.co/reftEbCLZe

[Hudson Institute @HudsonInstitute]

Iran's expanding influence in Georgia demonstrates that Tbilisi is facilitating Iranian penetration while allowing Tehran to build an extensive network of influence infrastructure.

This directly threatens US national security interests in the South Caucasus, undermines Western influence, and strengthens a regime that is committed to exporting the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, @LukeDCoffey and Giorgi Kandelaki write.

Read their new report: https://t.co/UMvrmimprR

[Hudson Institute @HudsonInstitute]

Venezuela's repressive state rests on three pillars:

1. Laws that criminalize dissent
2. Corrupt judges
3. A security apparatus that polices, persecutes, and tortures

These structures need to be dismantled, @leopoldolopez argues.

[Hudson Institute @HudsonInstitute]

"It's common knowledge to the Venezuelan people that there was a network of autocratic countries that were the patrons and the controllers of Venezuela.

"That is being changed," @leopoldolopez explains.

[Hudson Institute @HudsonInstitute]

Venezuela has an opportunity to build a prosperous and democratic nation following the United States' arrest of Nicolás Maduro, @leopoldolopez says at Hudson.

"I am optimistic about this new phase that Venezuela is beginning."

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Reports that Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba has been "elected" as Iran's new Supreme Leader.

Assume he won't last long, but it's worth upping this Bloomberg expose from January on his global investment empire, worth billions of dollars.

Includes mansions in London and luxury hotels from Frankfurt to Mallorca... Wild.
https://t.co/nLYWc5mEeK

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

If it isn’t already, the @USTreasury should coordinate with allies and partners to create an Iran-focused successor to the REPO task force.

The regime holds billions of dollars in offshore accounts and crypto wallets.

Even as Iran’s leadership is decapitated and its military capabilities degraded, these illicit assets can still be used to fund terrorist attacks against the West, as well as luxury lifestyles for insiders who flee instead of defecting.

This money rightfully belongs to the Iranian people. So hunt it down, seize it, and hold it in an International Fund for the Iranian People.

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Indeed. The Iranian regime has sleeper cells and routinely employs local organized crime groups (strangely, often biker gangs) to carry out hits and other terrorist activity in the West.

I'd be surprised if hardliners didn't have plans with such groups for a moment like this...

In particular, now would be a good time for Trump to reinstate Secret Service protection for former officials on Tehran's hitlist.

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Wow: Elizabeth Newman presents herself as the successful head of two UK crypto exchanges…

But she doesn’t exist. It’s all a front for Babak Zanjani, the notorious money launderer who moves billions for the Iranian regime.

Great work @OCCRP!
https://t.co/8WWsjuGhac

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Russia’s kleptocracy didn’t disappear when Putin brought the oligarchs to heel—or even when he attacked Ukraine. On the contrary, it surged with new opportunities for graft.

Now the corruption sprawls from the highest levels of the Kremlin to the frontlines in Ukraine…

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Freeze, seize, and place in a Fund for the Iranian People.

The Iranian regime is a kleptocracy that has stripped the population of economic opportunities.

When it falls, billions in seized funds could help rebuild the thriving future these brave people deserve.

[Nate Sibley @NateSibley]

Round them up, revoke their visas, freeze and seize their assets.

The aghazedeh—or “Rich Kids of Tehran”—are the direct and knowing beneficiaries not only of a brutal regime, but a sprawling kleptocracy that has trashed Iran’s prosperity.

They should face justice like their parents

[The Kleptocracy Initiative @KleptocracyIntv]

Venezuela’s new leader Delcy Rodriguez has always been deeply involved in organized crime.

With Maduro gone, she now oversees a sprawling kleptocracy based on corruption, illegal mining, and drug trafficking.
https://t.co/08VY7AM2DH

[Marshall S. Billingslea @M_S_Billingslea]

No. No queremos que esté ni cerca de Maduro en esa prisión. Queremos que Maduro y El Combatiente se pregunten cuántos miles de millones en cuentas en el extranjero va a delatar Saab para lograr un acuerdo.

Además, Saab también debe ser acusado/indictado por el fraude de los CLAP

[Mike @Doranimated]

My latest article

[Nikki Haley @NikkiHaley]

Iran uses offshore banks to launder its illicit oil profits. Hitting these banks is one of the best ways we can weaken the world’s top sponsor of terrorism. How much are we talking about?

"United Against Nuclear Iran, the leading tracker of Iranian oil exports, estimates that Iran sold 609 million barrels of oil to China in 2025. At $50 a barrel (a conservative estimate), those sales would have generated $30.45 billion.”

@Doranimated @HudsonInstitute @UANI

https://t.co/Sw32p4kDJq