Statement/12 April 2024
Ayatollah Khamenei, exclusive Coca-Cola representative in Iran
An investigation by the secretariat into Khoshgovar, which it describes as the Coca-Cola business in Iran, and into the stake it attributes to Ali Khamenei and his family.
Ayatollah Khamenei, exclusive Coca-Cola representative in Iran
Researched and prepared by the secretariat of the Azarbaijan Movement for Democracy and Integrity of Iran.
Khoshgovar, or Coca-Cola, the first producer of soft drinks in Iran and the best-selling brand in the Middle East over the past 20 years, belongs to Ali Khamenei, leader of the Islamic Revolution, and his family.
A small part of the shares of this company is in the name of Mohammad Jafar Yazdi, the principal partner of the leader of the Islamic Revolution and his family, registered in the documents and the books as a cover. Mr Jafari died in 1392, and his children now play this role.
The large Khoshgovar holding produces food products: Coca-Cola, the various Fanta drinks, Sprite, Canada Dry, malt beverages, Hi-D and König Ludwig, Khoshgovar doogh, Dasani mineral water, One Day energy drink, Fresh Day carbonated fruit drinks, lemonades, Powerade sports drink, and Minute Maid natural juices. It is among the strongest and best-selling factories in Iran, and an exporter across the Middle East, from Afghanistan and Central Asia to Iraq and Syria.
The central office of this vast holding is in Mashhad, and its large production plants are in Mashhad, Tehran, Tabriz, Qazvin, and Shabestar.
Khoshgovar’s connection with the Coca-Cola Company: before the revolution the company produced its products under the supervision of Coca-Cola, and after the revolution it kept its connection with this American company.
Khoshgovar of Mashhad imported Coca-Cola concentrate directly. In 1363, when the import of Coca-Cola was banned, it used an Iranian soft-drink formula. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Khoshgovar was wholly transformed. With a new contract with Coca-Cola of America, it again obtained the right to produce Coca-Cola. With very wide and vast investment it seized the Iranian market and launched its factories and brands one after another.
The controversy over Khoshgovar’s connection with Coca-Cola and with Israeli Jews: after the Israel-Gaza war of 2008 and 2009, the Islamic Republic’s parliament, by adopting a plan called “the sanction of Zionist goods” in Iran, called for sanctions on international and American companies, especially those with major Israeli and Jewish shareholders. In that line, the minister of industries, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s special representative, warned Khoshgovar to clarify its relationship with Coca-Cola. They soon regretted what they had done, and the newspapers wrote that Khoshgovar has no connection with Israel and that Coca-Cola is an American company.
The power and influence of the real owners of Coca-Cola in America, and of its exclusive representative in Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, are great enough that none of the governments can disrupt this special billion-dollar trade, or even publish news of it.
The Azarbaijan Movement is not opposed to the presence in Iran of American companies, Israeli companies, and the Jews of the world, Coca-Cola in particular, and is very glad of it. But a partnership with whom, and with which family? The profit of this astronomical trade goes into the pocket of a family that treats Israel and the Jews as the principal enemy of Iran and has drowned the Middle East in blood.
We ask all journalists, and every freedom-seeker, especially the aware and wise young people of Iran and the Middle East, to take up this subject and expose the dimensions of this billion-dollar trade. If there is a sanction, it must be the same for everyone, not only for the Iranian nation.
An astronomical income for the Khamenei family, which ordered chemical and poison attacks on a thousand girls’ schools in Iran, and which arrested, tortured, raped, fired pellets into the eyes of, and finally murdered thousands of young freedom-seekers, while itself continuing its filthy rule at a table spread with bounty and with the blood of Iran’s youth.
Long live Iran and the Iranian nation.
Secretariat of the Azarbaijan Movement for Democracy and Integrity of Iran
12 April 2024