Kamal Alavi
Kamal Alavi
Iranian-Swiss Businessman
Biography
Kamal Alavi is an Iranian-Swiss dual national and the CEO of Stratxx, a telecommunications company. He reportedly worked for the Iranian regime in the 1980s.
Alavi, who received a degree in physics from the University of Texas, announced in the mid-2000s that he had a strategy to use solar-powered airships, instead of cellular phone towers, to provide wireless mobile reception in Switzerland.
In 2014, Stratxx declared that it had launched a tethered airship, called the X-Tower, “to carry telecommunications and broadcast payloads.” In a test, the airship “broadcasted 12 digital television and two FM radio channels,” Stratxx claimed. However, Stratxx did not proceed with its plan, instead, declared bankruptcy later that year. The company’s assets were transferred beforehand to Swiss Space Sensors Technologies AG, which Alavi runs.
According to a news report, Alavi has “been active in the introduction of advanced technology of military night-vision radars and space balloons in [Iran].”
Detention
When Alavi traveled to Iran in recent years is unknown. The regime has reportedly held Alavi in the notoriously brutal Evin Prison since no later than 2017 because he allegedly revealed “confidential information of the Iranian Space Agency.” He has reportedly completed his prison sentence but is not being released until he pays the government $250 million and transfers all his shares in Swiss Space Sensors Technologies AG to Iran’s security and police organs.
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