India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is investigating Telegram, as it suspects the platform is being used for the purpose of money laundering through crypto trading, according to official sources.
“We are probing Telegram, as we’ve information that crypto trading occurs on that platform,” an official said. “In case there is enough evidence, we’ll take some action,” the person added.
Other departments of the government are also investigating Telegram over its alleged misuse for the purpose of gambling, and if the evidence is concrete, the platform may be banned in the country, the sources said.
In December, the FIU had sent notices to nine crypto exchanges operating in India, after they were found to be “illegally operating” and not compliant with India’s anti-money laundering law.
These exchanges are: Binance, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Kucoin, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex, and Bitfenix. Many of these were subsequently banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY). However, in August the ban on Binance was lifted.
In August, Telegram Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pavel Durov was arrested by French authorities due to alleged criminal activities on the platform. The French officials say that there is a lack of moderation on Telegram, which supports its misuse without any detection.
A report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), issued on Thursday, said that India has implemented several measures in order to strengthen its defences against cybercrime and enhance the regulation of virtual assets, used for the purpose of money laundering.
Established in 2020, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) plays a leading role in advancing cybersecurity efforts by developing sophisticated forensic and technological tools to assist law enforcement agencies (LEAs). Its mission includes generating detailed cybercrime threat intelligence reports and streamlining the process of reporting cyber incidents, all while utilizing state-of-the-art digital technologies for forensic investigations.
