In a major relief to Indian crypto exchange WazirX, the Enforcement Directorate unfroze its bank accounts. In a blog post on Monday, the crypto exchange communicated that it is now in a position to continue banking operations as usual over a month after the ED froze its bank accounts to inspect money laundering cases.
WazirX said it has cooperated with the investigators by providing all the necessary details, information, and documents of the alleged accused companies who used its platform. ED is investigating 16 fintech companies and instant loan apps, including WazirX. The Binance-linked company’s assets worth Rs 64.7 crore were frozen after the central agency suspected that the crypto exchange assisted instant loan app companies in laundering the proceeds of crime by converting them into cryptocurrencies on its platform. A number of fintech companies were dealing in illegal lending practices that were backed by Chinese funds, the ED had said.
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“The company further clarified that it has no association with any of the alleged accused fintech and instant loan app entities which appear to be the subject of ED investigation, and is carrying out the KYC/AML checks despite having no legal obligation to do so. WazirX is like any other intermediary whose platform may have been misused,” the blog post read.
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Due to the active cooperation extended by WazirX and active anti-money laundering (AML) checks that led to the blocking of suspicious accounts, ED has unfrozen WazirX’s bank accounts. WazirX is among the largest exchanges and has over 10 million registered users with a transaction volume of more than $5.4 billion per month, according to its website. Its crypto trading exchange allows users to buy, sell and trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and more cryptocurrencies in India.
“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,” it maintained.