A villa owned by the daughter of a former member of President Hassan Rouhani's cabinet will be soon demolished, the state-run Mehr News Agency (MNA) cited the mayor of the city of Lavasan as saying on Thursday, February 28.
Days earlier, Friday Prayer Imam of the city, Saeid Lavasani had disclosed that three officials affiliated with the Endowment Organization of Tehran and Shemiranat have been arrested and charged with land-grabbing, abusing their authority.
Lavasan is an opulent town in Shemiranat County, Tehran Province, situated eleven kilometers (roughly seven miles) northeast of the capital Tehran.
The effluent city is known for its pleasant weather and the luxurious villas and home to many upper-class and wealthy families. Many Iranians call it the Beverly Hills or Switzerland of Tehran.
A tweet that says these villas belong to the sons of the elite and even the Shah could not imagine it.
Land-grabbing and speculation have recently placed the area under the magnifying glass of local news outlets in recent months. Furthermore, social media is loaded with images of unbelievably luxurious mansions in the city, while tens of thousands of Iranians live in cardboard boxes, and even in newly dug graves.
The name of Rouhani's former minister has not yet officially been revealed, but the daughter of his former minister of Industry, Mohammad Reza Ne'matzadeh, has recently been accused of illegally owning a plot in Lavasan and building a mansion on the usurped spot.
Former minister's young daughter, Shabnam Nematzadeh is the owner and Managing Director of Rasa Pharmed, a company that dominates a big chunk of Iran's medicine business.
Shabnam Nematzadeh's mansion, if demolished, will be the second of its kind. Late November last year, another villa built on the mountainside in a neighboring posh area, Oushan, was also demolished.
In this Jan. 15, 2019 photo, men take pictures while visiting Niavaran Palace, now a museum, that was the primary and last residence of late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family prior to leaving Iran for exile in 1979.
There are other similar cases under investigation, local media report.
Some of the mansions built by wealthy and influential families in posh areas near Tehran are even more majestic than the modest palaces of the former king of Iran, Shah Mohammad Pahlavi, who left the country after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Pictures of the former king's palace in Tehran are circulated on social media side by side the magnificent new mansions as a comparison.