WazirX’s bank accounts have been unfrozen by India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), the company stated in an update. It also mentioned that the company has cooperated with the investigators by “providing them with all the necessary details, information, and documents of the alleged accused companies who used the WazirX platform.” The company is now eligible to continue its banking operations.
The company stated, “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 the bank accounts of WazirX.”
In August, the ED froze bank accounts worth Rs. 64.67 crores after conducting a search on one of the directors of Zanmai Lbs, the owner of WazirX. This also led to the company being disowned by Binance. Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao cleared in a series of tweets that it had nothing to do with WazirX and that the 2019 deal didn’t go through. The company also removed the Off-chain fund transfer channel between the two platforms.
ED is investigating 16 fintech companies and instant loan apps; some of them have appeared to use THE WazirX platform. The cryptocurrency platform also clarified that it has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal activities and has no relation with the accused companies. Most of the users who the platform found suspicious were blocked in 2020-2021. The company has also claimed that it is conducting active KYC/AML checks even when they have no obligation to do so.
The cryptocurrency platform also clarified that it has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal activities and has no relation with the accused companies.
The increasing digital lending by fraudulent applications has been the primary concern of the government of India as well as the RBI. Recently, the Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a meeting addressing the issue and took the decision that the Reserve Bank of India will prepare a ‘whitelist’ of similar legal applications. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will then ensure that only these applications are available on the app store.
