UK Dissolves Exchange After Discovering Director Was a Stock Photo and $1B in IRGC Flows Wasn't Just 'Active Trading'

Britain's corporate registry, Companies House, is finally pulling the plug on Zedxion Exchange Ltd., a crypto platform that seems to have specialized in a very niche market: laundering funds for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This tidy-up operation comes on the heels of U.S. sanctions slapped on the exchange in January by the Treasury's OFAC, which designated both Zedxion and its sibling, Zedcex, for allegedly helping Iran play hide-and-seek with sanctions and for cozying up to sanctioned financier Babak Zanjani.

The official reason for dissolution is "misleading, false or deceptive" info in the company's paperwork, which is corporate-speak for "the whole thing was a fiction." Investigators had a field day discovering that Zedxion's listed director, a supposed Dominican national named Elizabeth Newman, was about as real as a JPEG. The company reportedly used a stock photo for Newman in its promo materials, because why hire an actor when you can just right-click save?

Blockchain sleuths at TRM Labs did the math and found that Zedxion and Zedcex had processed roughly $1 billion in funds linked to the IRGC. This accounted for a cool 56% of their total volume, proving they weren't just dabbling in side-hustles. That share ballooned to a staggering 87% in 2024, with IRGC-linked flows hitting approximately $619.1 million, before dipping to a more modest 48% in 2025 as other, presumably less geopolitically charged, activity picked up.

Zedxion Exchange Ltd. was incorporated in May 2021, a simpler time. By October of that same year, an individual going by the name "Babak Morteza" had been listed as both director and the person with significant control. Records show details that match those of Babak Zanjani, an Iranian businessman who has made a career out of being accused of sanctions evasion—a real overachiever in that field.

In a classic corporate shuffle, "Babak Morteza" mysteriously ceased to be listed as a person with significant control in August 2022. Coincidentally, or not, the fictional Elizabeth Newman was appointed as a director in that very same month. It's the corporate equivalent of a magician's misdirection.

Zanjani is no amateur; he was previously sanctioned by the U.S. and EU back in 2013 for laundering billions in oil revenue for Iranian state entities, including the IRGC. He was even convicted in Iran in 2016 for embezzling state oil funds and handed a death sentence, though that was commuted in 2024 after he reportedly coughed up the cash. Talk about a high-stakes repayment plan.

By 2025, Zanjani had bounced back into the public eye, now linked to regime-aligned economic projects. He runs DotOne Holding Group, a conglomerate that spans cryptocurrency, foreign exchange, logistics, aviation, and telecommunications—a veritable Swiss Army knife of sectors perfectly suited for building sanctions evasion networks.

He has since become a public advocate for blockchain-based financial systems in Iran, claiming involvement in efforts to transition parts of the country's banking infrastructure onto the tech. Because nothing says "financial innovation" like using immutable ledgers to circumvent international pariah status.

Iran has, of course, been busy building infrastructure to leverage crypto for bypassing sanctions. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, illicit cryptocurrency addresses linked to the IRGC received at least $154 billion in digital assets last year alone—a 162% year-over-year increase that would make any VC portfolio green with envy.

In the wake of last month's joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, Chainalysis observed $10.3 million in cryptoasset outflows over a few days, though it couldn't pin down how much of that was state-aligned actors doing a quick portfolio rebalance amidst the fireworks.

The trend is clear: Iran's use of crypto to move money under sanctions is only expanding. Chainalysis's 2026 Crypto Crime Report notes more than $3 billion was tied to networks linked to the IRGC in 2025. They're not just testing the waters; they're building a navy.

Companies House is finally starting to flex its new muscles under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, using its powers to query and remove suspect information from the register. This includes mandatory identity verification for directors and beneficial owners, a rule that rolled out in late 2025—better late than never for catching stock photo directors.

Since March 2024, the registrar has had the authority to challenge suspicious info and demand a registered email