The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been using cryptocurrencies to circumvent Western sanctions for at least three years, according to a report by the TRM Institute.
Since early 2023, Guard has funneled approximately $1 billion through two UK-based crypto exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion. These exchanges are said to help security forces transfer large amounts of USDT across borders without going through banks.
Iranian security forces used encryption to contact overseas groups and suppliers
For the uninitiated, the Revolutionary Guards are the most powerful unit in Iran’s military and have been under heavy sanctions from the United States and other countries since they were deemed too strong an ally for Russia in the early days of the Ukraine war.
These rules were aimed at preventing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from doing business around the world in support of his so-called “great friend” Vladimir Putin, particularly in the purchase of weapons parts and groups that allegedly support groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
However, TRM could not say exactly what the crypto funds were used for, but noted that the US Treasury has already said that Iranian financiers are using cryptocurrencies to sustain oil sales.
Source: TRM Lab
For years, Iranian guards and others have operated front companies to keep their businesses afloat. According to the report, these two crypto exchanges have been added to the list.
TRM found that between 2023 and 2025, security guard movements accounted for 56% of all Zedcex and Zedxion activity. He also said that both brands are just different faces of the same company.
“Iran-linked actors, including sanctioned military entities, appear to be testing more persistent crypto infrastructure,” said Ali Redboard, head of policy at TRM.
Zedcex and Zedxion were tied to known Iranian oil smugglers
The numbers are huge: approximately $24 million in 2023, $619 million in 2024, and $410 million in 2025. Almost all of it was sent via the Tron network via USDT, a stablecoin created by Tether.
TRM reportedly executed test trades through the exchange and tracked where the funds went. They tracked a list of 187 wallet addresses flagged by Israel and said to be operated by the Guard. Funds moved between these wallets, offshore accounts, and other cryptocurrency companies in Iran.
In one case, $10 million ended up in the wallet of a Yemeni man who was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2021. The man was accused of selling Iranian fuel to raise funds for the Houthis.
The Guard also appears to be working with Babak Zanjani, a name familiar to Iranian observers. One of the directors of the exchange had the same name and date of birth as him.
Zanjani helped the government sell oil during the reign of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was sanctioned by President Barack Obama in 2013 and later accused of stealing more than $2 billion from the Iranian government.
Zanjani blamed sanctions for freezing funds and said he was innocent. He was sentenced to death, but that never happened. His sentence was dropped in 2024 and he is now free. The United States lifted sanctions against him in 2016 after Iran signed the nuclear deal, but those sanctions were never reinstated.
Encrypted channels helped Iran easily circumvent official systems
Sunil Levy, who runs the Israeli cryptocurrency analysis firm Nominis, supported TRM’s findings, saying his team allegedly looked at the same data and found at least $150 million routed through Zedxion and Zedcex tied to the Guard, but he provided no evidence.
Both exchanges claim on their websites that they follow anti-money laundering regulations, including ID checks and user bans from around 30 to 50 countries. Iran should also be on that list. But the report said Guardsmen were still using them.
TRM said Guard was able to make deposits and withdrawals from the platform to track how funds were moved.
“The $1 billion over two years shows that digital currencies are becoming a financial channel for Iran’s shadow banking system,” said Miad Maleki, who previously worked at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Tron, the cryptocurrency network involved in most of the transfers, said it worked with Tether and TRM to try to stop this type of activity. They claimed there had been a “sharp” decline in suspicious transactions. But apparently, the system worked well enough for the Guard to spend $800 million over three years.
