Companies House has removed cryptocurrency exchange Zedxion Exchange Ltd. from the UK’s register of businesses after an investigative report by OCCRP found the firm used a fictitious director and misleading incorporation filings to conceal links to sanctioned Iranian tycoon Babak Zanjani.

The company register posted a notice on Zedxion’s profile announcing that crypto firm would be effectively dissolved because its incorporation application was “misleading, false, or deceptive,” according to OCCRP. Filings also show a first gazette notice for compulsory strike-off has been submitted, the news outlet said.

The regulatory action comes less than a month after OCCRP reported that Zedxion’s listed director and “Person with Significant Control,” Elizabeth Newman, was a false identity presented as a Dominican national in official filings. The company used the image of a stock-photo model to portray the fictitious Newman in a marketing video.

The investigative news outlet said that, in reality, the false identity was used as a front for Zanjani, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in January over alleged financial backing for projects supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian regime more broadly. 

OFAC also sanctioned Zedxion Exchange Ltd. and another British-registered crypto platform, Zedcex Exchange Ltd., citing their connections to Zanjani and saying multiple wallet addresses attributed to the two firms had processed funds for wallets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, OCCRP said.

Read more at OCCRP