Iran on-profit ‘front’ in NYC at center of hate campaign in United States: report

A Manhattan “front” for Iran has many tentacles in the five boroughs, including a 36-story office building on Fifth Avenue considered its crown jewel.

The Alavi Foundation — named in a new report as a lynchpin of Iran’s “influence” campaign inside the US — also owns a 36,000-square-foot building in Queens that is home to a mosque and a school with a taxpayer-funded pre-K program.

In 2017, the federal government seized the soaring building at 650 Fifth Ave on the corner of East 52nd in what was then seen as a massive victory in the war on terror.

An appellate judge, however, overturned the action on procedural grounds, and the legal battle is still ongoing, according to the report from George Washington University’s program on extremism.

The tax-exempt foundation owns four other properties in the US that it leases out to Muslim organizations for $1 a year to serve as mosques, community centers and schools.

Income from commercial rents at 650 Fifth Ave. allows them to finance the subsidy.

Tenants at the Fifth Avenue skyscraper currently include Nike’s flagship House of Innovation, a Rolex service center and a number of law firms.

The 17th floor previously was rented out to a fund owned by President Biden’s son Hunter and brother James.

The Alavi building on Queens Boulevard is home to the Islamic Institute of New York, the Imam Ali mosque and the private Al Razi School, according to GWU researchers.

The private school, with 163 students, received more than $1 million in government grants in 2022, according to tax records. The GWU report noted the school receives funding from the New York state Department of Education.

The Razi school and Islamic Institute have attempted to distance themselves from their landlord.

A sign at one point was put up in the school’s lobby noting that Alavi has “no involvement” in any of the building tenants’ activities, according to a 2009 New York Times report.

Alavi, however, has pumped over $1.6 million into the institute over the years, in addition to spending millions on maintaining and renovating the building, the report found.

The institute and mosque regularly commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution and celebrate Quds day, an annual anti-Israel day of rage declared by Ayatollah Khomeini, the report said, citing now removed pages from the institute’s website.

Iranian officials such as Mohammad Khazaee, a former regime ambassador to the United Nations has regularly spoken at its events and regularly met with Alavi boss and ex-con Farshid Jahedi.

Alavi did not respond to a request for comment.