London’s role in Iran’s financial networks — and why it matters now

With the US and Israel now at war with Iran, attention is turning to how the country’s ruling elite has been able to move and park its wealth in the West, including here in the UK. 

Transparency International UK has been collecting information on the UK’s exposure to illicit wealth linked to Iran’s elites and associated money laundering networks. Consistently appearing as one of the world’s most corrupt countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, what we have found connected to Iran is troubling. Investigations by journalists, combined with recent sanctions by the UK and US governments, paint a picture of Iranian regime figures and their proxies using London property, UK-registered companies, and regulated financial institutions to launder wealth and maintain access to the global financial system. 

Over £200 million in London property 

In total, we have identified over £200 million worth of UK property bought by figures linked to the regime in Iran. The owners include sanctioned individuals and those accused of running money laundering operations on the regime’s behalf. 

The most striking example is that of Iran’s newly-announced Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. In January 2026, Bloomberg reported that Khamenei had built a global property empire worth hundreds of millions of pounds, with London at its centre. He is alleged to have amassed around £150 million in London property by investing through a proxy, the Iranian banker Ali Ansari, such that Khamenei’s name appears on none of the relevant documents. Ansari denies any financial relationship with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or with Motjaba Khamenei. 

A property on The Bishops Avenue in London, listed as being owned by a company called Birch Ventures. Photo: Google Maps

The portfolio includes a £73 million collection of derelict mansions on Bishops Avenue, purchased through an Isle of Man company called Birch Ventures Limited, a £33 million mansion on the same street bought in Ansari’s own name, and two apartments overlooking the Israeli embassy purchased in 2014 and 2016 for £16.7 million and £19 million respectively. 

Ansari assembled this property portfolio with the help of a UK-regulated, Iranian-born lawyer. The scale and nature of these acquisitions raise serious questions about how the UK’s anti-money laundering framework allowed this to happen over a period of many years. 

Crypto exchanges with a fictional CEO 

London property is only part of the story. A recent investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that two UK-registered crypto exchanges, Zedcex and Zedxion, allegedly formed a key channel for laundering billions in digital assets on behalf of Iranian interests linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

The supposed CEO of these exchanges, “Elizabeth Newman,” presented as a Dominican businesswoman in her 40s, appears not to exist. Marketing materials used a stock-footage model from Shutterstock, and images of other “staff” were also stock clips. Despite being declared dormant in UK Companies House filings, US authorities allege one of the platforms handled around $94 billion in total transactions, with approximately $1 billion linked to the IRGC. 

The network is tied to Iranian financier Babak Morteza Zanjani, previously sentenced to death in Iran for embezzling oil revenues, whose sentence was later commuted, and who has since been sanctioned by both the US and UK for generating funds and support for the IRGC. 

The UK’s corporate framework provided a veneer of legitimacy which allowed these exchanges to operate in plain sight. 

A hedge fund in Knightsbridge 

Another Bloomberg investigation uncovered how Hossein Shamkhani, son of the late Ali Shamkhani, a former top advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, had established a money laundering network using London-based finance firms as a key node. Shamkhani has previously denied involvement in the commodity industry, but has since been sanctioned by the UK, US and EU. 

At the centre of this was Ocean Leonid Investments, a hedge fund operating from 180 Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, close to Harrods. Bloomberg described the fund as a central cog in the Shamkhani network, which handles Iranian and Russian crude flows and related trades. London, in other words, was functioning as part of this network’s command-and-control infrastructure. 

Offshore secrecy 

Iranian money laundering and sanctions evasion networks have also made use of opaque corporate structures in Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated British Virgin Islands (BVI) companies as part of Iran’s illicit oil trade networks. Our own research has found that figures close to the regime have used BVI companies to invest in UK property. The Ansari properties, as noted above, made use of an Isle of Man company. 

Transparency InternationaI UK has long campaigned for greater corporate transparency in the UK’s offshore network. These cases show exactly why it matters. 

What needs to happen 

The cases outlined here are not historical curiosities. They represent live vulnerabilities in the UK’s defences against illicit finance. Iranian regime figures and their proxies have been able to use UK property, companies, and financial institutions with apparent ease. 

At a time when the geopolitical stakes around Iran could not be higher, the UK government needs to act. The global summit on Illicit Finance to be hosted here in June provides an ideal opportunity for the UK to show leadership in galvanising worldwide measures to tackle money laundering. This should include strong commitments to crack down on professional enablers who assist corrupt regimes in laundering funds through financial systems and property markets, as well as action to be taken on opening up company ownership information in opaque jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man. 

Four years ago, as Russian tanks rolled towards Kyiv, time was finally called on London serving as a safe haven for the dirty money of corrupt regimes. Yet even now, we still have a lot of cleaning up to do. 

Transparency International UK