Do Indian crypto exchanges launder money? Investigation is ongoing
India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) continues its investigation into money laundering involving cryptocurrency exchanges. No less than 10 organizations are believed to have been involved in illegal transactions amounting to more than $130 million.
At least 10 Indian cryptocurrency exchanges are under investigation. The Enforcement Directorate suggests that with their involvement, the accused firms, which often have ties to China, laundered more than 1,000 crore rupees. Not only did they purchase tokens, but they also promptly sent them to international wallets. Meanwhile, representatives of the cryptocurrency exchanges did not conduct comprehensive data verification or send reports on suspicious transactions.
Even though the platforms claim to be in full compliance with the requirements, one of the investigation participants claims to have received questionable KYC data. In several cases, the identified persons were not involved in the transactions at all.
As for the accused organizations, when they learned of the regulator’s scrutiny, they promptly ceased their activities and withdrew their cryptocurrency funds abroad.
The opaque nature of the crypto ecosystem and the industry not being regulated provided the requisite cover for these firms to park their assets offshore. This makes investigating the proceeds of crime and trailing the ultimate beneficiary and the nature of the assets created by them difficult.reports a source close to the ED.
Over the next week, the ED experts will again be questioning representatives of cryptocurrency exchanges under investigation.
While so far the agency has frozen the accounts of WazirX, similar transactions have taken place on the other exchanges and they have been asked to join the probe.As noted by one of the Indian officials.
