Crypto, Sanctions and Secrecy The IRGC's Financial Footprint in Britain
Crypto, Sanctions and Secrecy: The IRGC’s Financial Footprint in Britain
On July 13, Hoptrail was invited to Parliament to present our intelligence on the crypto operations of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the United Kingdom. On the same day, the UK Government designated the IRGC under the newly enacted National Security (State Threats) Act 2026, criminalizing support for the group without formally proscribing it as a terrorist organization.
Our report, Crypto, Sanctions and Secrecy: The IRGC’s Financial Footprint in Britain, outlines our findings: two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges that processed close to $1 billion in transactions linked to the IRGC, a family-run OTC network operating from London, and a wave of Iran-linked attacks across the UK earlier this year that follows a pattern now detailed in a DOJ indictment. As Western sanctions have tightened around Iran’s economy over the past few years, cryptocurrency has emerged as a major channel for evading them. The IRGC is no longer simply moving money through Western financial systems from the outside; it has built its own companies and accounts inside them, and it is through those that it moves funds. 🚀
The IRGC has exploited the UK’s corporate infrastructure for two reasons. First, registering a company at Companies House is quick and cheap, and a London address confers Western legitimacy on Iranian networks otherwise locked out of international markets. Second, until very recently, the registration regime required no identity verification for directors or beneficial owners. This allowed IRGC-linked actors to establish shell companies through nominees, fabricated identities, and virtual offices. These UK-incorporated entities then acted as the interface between the regulated financial system and the unregulated stablecoin economy, running most of their transactions in USDT on the TRON blockchain, utilizing a combination that offers low fees and deep liquidity.
Between 2023 and 2025, two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges – Zedcex and Zedxion – processed around $1 billion in stablecoin transactions linked to the IRGC. Rather than build their own exchange infrastructure, both platforms relied on ChainUp, a Singapore-based provider of white-label cryptocurrency exchange technology. Most transactions were carried out using Tether (USDT) on the TRON blockchain. The network’s low fees and high liquidity made it possible to move large amounts of money quickly and at minimal cost, serving as an efficient rail for cross-border transfers. The exchanges were also connected to major Iranian cryptocurrency platforms, including Nobitex, Wallex.ir, and Aban Tether. This integration allowed funds linked to sanctioned actors to mix with legitimate retail transactions, making suspicious activity harder to identify and trace. To connect digital assets with the conventional financial system, Zedxion relied on Zedpay, a Turkey-based payment processor.
Through banking relationships in Turkey, Zedpay provided a fiat on- and off-ramp that allowed cryptocurrency to be converted into traditional currencies, making the funds useful for real-world transactions despite international financial restrictions. Finally, Elliptic has reported evidence suggesting that the Central Bank of Iran purchased at least $507 million in USDT. If accurate, this indicates that the same cryptocurrency ecosystem may have supported not only IRGC-related activity but broader Iranian government objectives, such as the support of the Iranian Rial. An OCCRP investigation published in February 2026 established that the listed director and person with significant control of Zedxion Exchange Ltd., described in Companies House filings as a Dominican national named “Elizabeth Newman”, was a fictitious identity. Companies House records show that a United Arab Emirates passport-holder named “Babak Morteza”, whose identifying details match those of Babak Zanjani, was Zedxion’s listed person with significant control from October 2021 to August 2022. Despite filing as a dormant company in the United Kingdom, Zedcex alone has processed more than $94 billion in total transactions since its August 2022 registration, according to the US Treasury. The OCCRP investigation, combined with OFAC’s January 2026 sanctions designations of both Zedxion and Zedcex, triggered enforcement action by Companies House. In March 2026, the registrar published a notice stating its intention to forcibly strike off Zedxion Exchange Ltd. under section 1002A of the Companies Act 2006.