Friday, March 21, 2025
Hassan Nemazee, the Iranian entrepreneur whose career in the US blew up in a scandal after President Clinton nominated him to be an ambassador, has just released his memoir, “Persia, Politics & Prison: A Life in Three Parts.” The former multimillionaire was convicted of defrauding banks of nearly $300 million in 2009 and served a decade in prison. Nemazee was born in 1950 in the United States and grew up a US citizen, attending elite schools and earning a degree from Harvard University.
The Nemazees were a prominent family of merchants originally from Shiraz. Nemazee’s grandfather, Mohammed Hassan Nemazee, left Shiraz for Bombay in his early 20s in 1870 to establish a successful trading business between the two cities, before moving to Hong Kong. His father, Mohammed Nemazee, took over the company at 26 and shifted its core business from trade to shipping, before leaving Hong Kong for America following the 1941 Japanese occupation of the British colony.
The youngest Nemazee was born in New York in 1950. His sister, Susie Nemazee, became the wife of the British Ambassador to the United States from 2012- 2016, Sir Peter Westmacott. Losing his father just before graduating from Harvard at 22, Nemazee returned to Iran in 1972 to take on his responsibilities as heir. He would spend the next six years there, partnering with major international businesses in real estate development, insurance and banking. “Iran was thriving, and I was eager to thrive with it,” he writes in the book.
His background, youth and drive perfectly positioned him to do so: an American-born, American-educated Iranian, with “a family name that opened doors in Iran and elsewhere.” That is, until the advent of the revolution — when those same privileges suddenly became liabilities, and all of his personal holdings were nationalized in 1979. Nemazee, who was married by then, left Iran for the United States soon afterward, starting over in New York City, and rebuilding his life and wealth in the US. He would later get involved in political fundraising and, by 1996, establish himself as one of the leading fundraisers in the Democratic Party.
President Bill Clinton nominated Nemazee to be US ambassador to Argentina. Due to congressional concerns about Nemazee’s convoluted and controversial business dealings, the nomination was subsequently withdrawn. In 2009, however, Nemazee was sentenced to 12 years in prison for orchestrating a scheme that defrauded Bank of America, Citibank and HSBC of $292 million. According to the sentence, the funds were used to buy and maintain luxury properties, make financial investments and contribute $2 million in political donations and charitable gifts. Nemazee served his prison term at a low-security facility in Texas, and in prison camps in New York and Maryland.
He was released in 2019 to serve the remainder of his 12-year sentence in home confinement. He wrote his memoirs while in prison. In a recent interview with Kayhan Life, Nemazee looked back on his life and times in Iran. He said, “I saw the opportunity of investing in a bank, an insurance company, and real estate at the same time. Had the revolution not occurred, this combination would have been unique. My hubris came later in life, as a result, I think, of my earlier successes.” He said, “I believe Iran would have been better served to have moderated its development plans in a manner that would have avoided excessive inflation and massive population movements from rural to urban centers, and built sufficient infra structure to support the massive spending that the Shah under took.” When the revolution broke out, “I was one of the first people to be placed on Iran’s version of the No-Fly List.
I was stopped from leaving on December 4, 1978. I called on every relationship that I had to try to get permission to leave. We received phone calls every day saying, ‘We will kill you if you try to leave.’ It was clear that I was a target of someone. “Ultimately, I was interviewed by the deputy minister of justice who gave me my exit visa. It was my insistence that he give me a letter to the police department that forced the police to release my passport on a Thursday afternoon. The police went on strike on Saturday until after the revolution in February. Had I not obtained my passport on that day, there is no question in my mind that I would have been a target.”
He said of the many who were wealthy in Iran before the revolution, “All of those of us who benefitted from our positions of power by and large didn’t engage in the political process. We abdicated that responsibility. I resolved not to repeat that in America therefore, my involvement in American politics.” Looking at the future from the perspective of a 75-year-old Iranian expatriate, he said, “I’ve always believed that one day, we will all have an opportunity to return to Iran. I would certainly love to return to Iran with my wife, Nazie Nemazee, our five children and all of our grandchildren. Change comes when least expecte
