Treasury Sanctions Istanbul Fintech Zedpay Over Ties to Iranian Financier Babak Zanjani's Crypto Network

The US Treasury Department sanctioned an Istanbul fintech company and its Iranian chairman on Friday, saying the firm helped a crypto exchange tied to convicted Iranian financier Babak Zanjani dodge sanctions and move money for Tehran.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added Zedpay Financial Systems and Services Inc. and its chairperson, Mehdi Rezazadeh, to the Specially Designated Nationals list. The action covered four individuals and nine companies total, according to Turkish Minute.

OFAC's allegation: Zedpay, a digital wallet and global transfer provider, was integrated into Zedxion Exchange Limited, a UK-registered crypto exchange connected to Zanjani. That integration let Zedxion users tap Zedpay wallets while trading, giving the exchange access to conventional currency settlement and cross-border payment rails it didn't otherwise have.

Zedpay was designated under Executive Order 13902 for being owned or controlled by Zedxion, or acting on its behalf. Rezazadeh was sanctioned for acting on Zedpay's behalf. US records list the company at Tekstilkent Plaza in Istanbul's Esenler district, established May 24, 2022, as a computer programming business, per Turkish Minute.

Who Is Babak Zanjani

Zanjani has been under US sanctions since 2012 for moving Iranian oil revenue through shell companies, according to Briefs Finance. He was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling billions in oil money. That sentence was commuted in 2024, and Turkish Minute reports he re-emerged in 2025 as a financial backer of projects tied to the Iranian government. Briefs Finance dates the commutation to 2023, a discrepancy in the two accounts that isn't resolved in either report, though both agree it followed his cooperation with Iranian authorities.

Treasury says Zanjani's companies now use financial services, crypto, gold, transportation and infrastructure projects to hide ownership, launder funds and move money for Iran.

Two other exchanges tied to Zanjani, Zedxion and Zedcex Exchange Limited, were sanctioned back in January. Treasury said at the time that addresses linked to those exchanges processed funds for wallets connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that Zedcex alone had handled more than $94 billion in transactions since registering in 2022, according to Turkish Minute.

Treasury's Statement and Context

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement reported by Briefs Finance: "Treasury will continue cutting off economic access for corrupt Iranian regime elites, along with their financiers and facilitators."

The sanctions freeze any Zedpay or Rezazadeh property under US jurisdiction and bar US persons from dealing with them without OFAC authorization. Non-US financial institutions can also face exposure for certain dealings with the designated parties.

Briefs Finance frames the move as part of a broader Trump administration push that includes military pressure and a naval blockade aimed at Iran, following what it describes as the breakdown of a US-Iran truce earlier this month. That same report notes the State Department separately announced Thursday a reward of up to $15 million for information disrupting Beh Joule Pars, an Iranian missile-production company, and two of its executives, under the Rewards for Justice program.

Neither report specifies what the "breakdown of the US-Iran truce" actually entailed or when a truce was in place, leaving that claim thin on detail. Readers should treat it as asserted context rather than a fully documented event based on what's available here.

The Turkey Angle

Turkish Minute adds historical detail the Briefs Finance piece doesn't: Turkish investigators reportedly tried to detain Zanjani during a planned meeting with Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab in Antalya, tied to the December 17, 2013, Turkish corruption investigation. The meeting was called off after the two men apparently sensed they were being watched. Zanjani denied the account at the time and denied being Zarrab's business partner.

That 2013 operation also detained Zarrab, then-Halkbank CEO Süleyman Aslan, and the sons of two Turkish government ministers. It's a reminder that Zanjani and Zarrab-style sanctions-evasion schemes running through Turkish banks and now Turkish fintechs are not a new story. They're a decade-plus pattern that keeps resurfacing in new forms, crypto being the latest.

No criminal charges against Zedpay or Rezazadeh have been announced by any US authority. These are OFAC sanctions designations, which freeze assets and restrict transactions. They are not criminal indictments, and neither source reports one has been filed.

What remains unresolved: whether Turkish authorities will take any parallel action against a company registered and operating out of Istanbul, given Ankara's often complicated relationship with US sanctions enforcement on Iran. Neither source indicates the Turkish government has commented on the Zedpay designation.