The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions Friday on four individuals and nine entities tied to Iranian financier Babak Zanjani’s sprawling sanctions evasion network, targeting his domestic conglomerate and a web of foreign firms that supported his cryptocurrency exchanges.
“The Iranian regime continues to pay a steep economic price for its reckless behavior, with the rial plunging to another record low and inflation up massively,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury will continue cutting off economic access for corrupt Iranian regime elites, along with their financiers and facilitators.”
The action builds on a January 2026 designation of Zanjani himself and his two UK-registered cryptocurrency exchanges, Zedcex Exchange Limited and Zedxion Exchange Limited, which Treasury said have processed more than $94 billion in transactions since 2022, with a significant share attributed to wallets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran’s inflation now exceeds 60% as the country faces simultaneous U.S. military and economic pressure.
Zanjani is a central figure in Iran’s financial underground. Originally sanctioned by OFAC in 2013 for moving billions in Iranian oil revenue around the globe, he was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling billions from the state-run National Iranian Oil Company. His sentence was commuted in 2024, and by 2025 he had publicly re-emerged as a major backer of government-linked economic projects — including an $800 million rail contract his Dot One Rail Company secured with the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways in April 2025.
Friday’s designations targeted the full breadth of his domestic and offshore network. The Dot One Value Creation Group, the Tehran-based holding company at the top of Zanjani’s domestic empire, was sanctioned alongside five subsidiaries: Dot One Gold Company, which mints and stores gold bars and backs a gold-linked digital token; Dot One Rail Company; Dot One Barter Company; Dot One Airlines Company; and Dot One Trip, a ride-sharing venture.
Three foreign entities that supported his cryptocurrency exchanges were also designated: Istanbul-based Zedpay, a financial technology firm integrated directly into the Zedxion platform that provided payment and settlement capabilities; Dubai-based Zedx DMCC, which acted on Zedcex’s behalf; and BZ Diamond FZCO, a Dubai-based diamond trading company managed by Zanjani’s sister, Bahareh Morteza Zanjani, which promoted Zedxion products and conducted financial transactions with the exchanges. Both Bahareh Morteza Zanjani and the chairperson of Zedpay, Mehdi Rezazadeh, were individually designated. Sukhrob Oimakhmadov, the manager of Zedx, and Solmaz Bani, Zanjani’s partner who registered websites for his companies, were also designated.