Federal prosecutors are asking a judge for permission to grab a French-style Beverly Hills estate they say was snapped up and tricked out with roughly $30 million in proceeds from a scheme that allegedly ripped off the U.S. Department of Defense. The target is a luxury spread marketed as Foothill Manor and linked in court papers to Mansour Barzani, a senior Kurdish general closely related to Kurdistan’s ruling political family. In a new civil complaint, the government tags the property as the suspected end point of inflated wartime fuel contracts and kickbacks.
DOJ files civil forfeiture complaint
According to a Justice Department release, the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on April 22 seeking forfeiture of the Beverly Hills property. The release states that the FBI Washington Field Office, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and IRS Criminal Investigation worked the case, and that the complaint follows roughly $30 million from allegedly padded Defense Logistics Agency payments into a Virginia trust that prosecutors say bankrolled both the purchase and the renovations.
The house on Foothill Road
Court filings reviewed by reporters identify the estate as a tucked-away Foothill Road property marketed as Foothill Manor at 945 North Foothill Drive in Beverly Hills, complete with private theater, swimming pool and formal European-style gardens. As reported by The Real Deal, the government contends that many of those high-end upgrades were funded with transfers that the complaint traces to NYJD Trust No. 1.
How prosecutors say the scheme worked
The complaint alleges that from 2016 through 2020, a Virginia-based contractor paid about $0.25 per liter in bribes to General Mansour Barzani in exchange for exclusive rights to deliver jet fuel at Erbil International Airport, then charged the Defense Logistics Agency as much as $10 per gallon, far above the roughly $2 to $3 per gallon the Defense Department typically paid. Prosecutors say contract records and wire data show money from those inflated invoices moving through entities tied to the contractor and into the trust that ultimately acquired and renovated the Beverly Hills home, according to the Justice Department release.
The bigger picture
The case lands against the backdrop of broader scrutiny of the Barzani family’s U.S. real estate holdings, where journalists and watchdog groups have detailed the use of shell companies and opaque trusts to accumulate American property and luxury assets. The New Republic and other investigations have previously mapped a sizable U.S. footprint tied to the family and raised questions about the connection between regional fuel deals and California property purchases.
What comes next
The government’s action is a civil in rem forfeiture case, meaning the lawsuit is technically against the property itself. Prosecutors will have to convince a judge, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the mansion is traceable to criminal proceeds. Anyone claiming an interest in the property can step in to challenge the complaint and argue innocent-owner defenses. For a breakdown of how federal civil forfeiture works and what standards apply, see the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.
