Two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges allegedly processed billions of dollars for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards using a fabricated chief executive built from stock footage, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The report said the companies, Zedcex and Zedxion, listed a supposed director and person with significant control named “Elizabeth Newman,” but investigators found no passport records, migration history or other evidence that such a person exists.
Promotional materials for the exchanges used stock video footage labeled “Pretty black woman talking to camera” from Shutterstock to portray the fictitious executive, while other “team members” also appeared to be generic stock clips.
The companies were able to register in Britain because, until recently, Companies House required no identity verification for corporate filings.
OCCRP’s investigation also linked the exchanges to Iranian tycoon Babak Morteza Zanjani, who was sentenced to death in 2016 for embezzling oil revenues but whose sentence was commuted in 2024.
Zanjani briefly appeared as a director of Zedxion, the report said, and his name remains embedded in the metadata of the exchange’s white paper. A YouTube video also shows him promoting Zedcex.
Despite filing as dormant companies in Britain, the two exchanges processed roughly $94 billion in transactions, OCCRP reported.
Investigators traced more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency flows connected to entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to the report and blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs.
That included more than $10 million sent to a Yemeni financier accused of supporting Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, the report said.
A key link between the network and Zanjani emerged through social media posts by his partner, Solmaz Bani—also known as Niyoosha or Sara Bani—a former model whom investigators say registered newsletter domains connected to the exchanges and appeared in login data tied to their operations.
According to the investigation, images shared by Zedxion’s Telegram channel in May 2024 showed a white cat with grey-brown markings and a distinctive purple bell collar.
A nearly identical cat, wearing the same collar, appeared in photographs posted on Bani’s now-deleted Facebook account in February 2025.
Investigators also said distinctive furniture seen in Zanjani’s social media posts matched items appearing in photographs linked to the exchange network.
The report said the scheme may have helped finance activities linked to the Revolutionary Guard, including repression during protests in Iran in January 2026 triggered by inflation and currency collapse.
The US Treasury sanctioned Zanjani on January 30, 2026. Britain has also sanctioned him, though the exchanges themselves have not been targeted.
New identity-verification requirements for Companies House filings are due to take effect in May 2026.
Zanjani dismissed the US accusations on social media platform X, calling them “merely a pretext for seizing 660 million Tether and extortion.”
The exchanges and Bani did not respond to requests for comment, according to the investigation.
