The UK is set to delist a cryptocurrency company associated with the sanctioned mogul Babak Zanjani

• 18.03.2026 13:54

Companies House to strike off Zedxion Exchange after an OCCRP investigation found the firm used a stock-photo model to hide its links to sanctioned Iranian tycoon Babak Zanjani.

Britain’s company register has moved to forcibly dissolve a cryptocurrency exchange accused by the U.S. of processing funds for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, citing “misleading, false or deceptive” filings, after an OCCRP investigation revealed that the firm’s listed director was fictitious.

The Companies House profile for Zedxion Exchange Ltd. now carries a notice stating that “the registrar is intending to take, or has taken, steps to strike off this company under section 1002A of the Companies Act 2006.”

“This relates to information or a statement in an application for incorporation that is misleading, false, or deceptive,” the notice reads. Filings also show that a “first gazette notice for compulsory strike-off” has been submitted and will be publicly available in ten days.

The regulatory action comes less than a month after an OCCRP discovered that Zedxion Exchange’s “Person with Significant Control” and director Elizabeth Newman — listed as a Dominican in official filings — was a false identity used as a front for sanctioned Iranian tycoon Babak Zanjani.

Neither Zedxion Exchange nor Zanjani responded before publication to requests for comment on the Companies House notice. 

OCCRP found the firm had used the image of a stock photo model to depict Newman in a marketing video.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Zanjani in January over his alleged “financial backing for major projects that support the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and the Iranian regime more broadly.”

OFAC also designated Zedxion Exchange Ltd. and another U.K.-registered cryptocurrency platform, Zedcex Exchange Ltd., citing their “connections to Zanjani,” and stating that “multiple Zedcex and Zedxion-attributed addresses have processed funds for wallets linked to the IRGC.” 

A report by blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs found that, despite filing dormant accounts, Zedxion and its sister company Zedcex appeared to play an increasingly prominent role in the financing of the IRGC, a military organization that doubles as a multi-billion-dollar business empire and enforces the agenda of Iran’s theocratic regime. 

Companies House records show that a United Arab Emirates passport-holder named “Babak Morteza” — whose identifying details match those of Zanjani — was Zedxion’s listed “Person with Significant Control” from October 2021 to August 2022. At the time, Zanjani was formally subject to a death sentence in Iran, following a conviction for embezzlement of state oil funds in 2016.

Zanjani’s death sentence was commuted in 2024 and he was formally released last year. However, prison records seen by OCCRP reporters suggested he may have been allowed to leave prison as of 2019, two years before Zedxion was formally incorporated.