WazirX: India’s ED Unfreezes Crypto Exchange’s Bank Account

WazirX brings some good news to its users. After more than a month, India’s financial crime-fighting agency announced on Monday that WazirX’s bank accounts had been unfrozen. The exchange is connected to Binance, the largest digital currency exchange in the world.

The company was under investigation by the federal Enforcement Directorate (ED) last year for alleged violations of foreign exchange laws, and its assets worth $8.16 million worth of rupees were frozen. View More

The exchange claimed that it is now able to carry on with regular banking operations.

“After an in-depth internal investigation, WazirX noticed that most of the users whose information was sought by ED were already identified as suspicious by WazirX internally and were blocked in 2020-2021.”

The exchange stated in a blog.

WazirX stated that it cooperated with the investigators

According to the exchange, it has worked with the investigators by giving them all the pertinent facts, information, and documentation regarding the alleged accused businesses that used its platform.

Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of Binance, revealed last month that the purchase of WazirX, which was announced in 2019, was never finalized. But CEO Nischal Shetty was of the opinion that the deal was completed.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presided over a meeting on September 8 about the apps, which also witnessed participation by the Deputy Governor of RBI, and brought the “illegal loan apps” scam with connections to China into the public eye.

The ED raided the exchange’s director Sameer Mhatre’s properties on August 5 for reportedly assisting “approximately 16 accused industry players in laundering the criminal proceeds using the crypto route,” freezing $8.1 million in assets held by the exchange.