Over 4,000 RS CRs Laundered Through Cryptos Unearthed By ED In 1 Year | India News
NEW DELHI: Virtual cryptocurrency exchanges have emerged as the new tax havens that launder large amounts of illegal money anonymously, as more than 4,000 crore of these transactions have been discovered by the Enforcement Branch in the past year only.
In June of this year, ED issued a notice of submission to one of the major exchanges in India after the agency failed to track the real beneficiary who laundered more than Rs 2,800 crore at the using cryptocurrency. In two related transactions, the agency found receipt of Rs 880 crore and transfer of Rs 1,400 crore of crypto currency, but none of the transactions had details of the beneficiaries.
In this particular case, the criminals converted the “proceeds of crime†hidden in Indian rupees into “Tether†crypto currency and then transferred them to “Binance Walletsâ€, a crypto wallet service registered on Cayman Island where the illegal money was converted into dollars with the ease of being re-laundered into the legal banking system using shell companies.
This Indian virtual cryptocurrency exchange, according to the ED, provided all Indian rupee to virtual currency conversion services and end-to-end transactions with the utmost secrecy, including person-to-person transactions. abroad.
“None of these transactions are available on the blockchain for audit / investigation. It has been found that customers can transfer valuable cryptocurrencies to anyone regardless of location and nationality without any proper documentation, making it a safe haven for users looking for money laundering / other illegitimate activities, â€the ED said on its recent broadcast. notify one of the crypto exchanges in India.
The government enumerated a bill during the winter session of Parliament to ban all private cryptocurrencies not only to combat the increase in cases of money laundering in the country using the virtual currency, but also to meet the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental watchdog based in Paris.
In a paper published on cryptocurrencies, the FATF noted that many of these exchanges are “designed to avoid scrutiny by regulatory authorities and to help criminals distribute, store and launder the proceeds of credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, drug trafficking and child pornography by allowing them to carry out anonymous and untraceable financial transactions â€.
In one of these cases mentioned by the FATF in its study, a Liberty Reserve entity, with its own cryptocurrency called Liberty Dollars, was dismantled by US law enforcement agencies. The money transmitter has operated on a large scale with over a million users worldwide and over 55 million transactions, all deemed illegal.
In December of last year, the ED arrested a person from Bhavnagar, Gujarat, who transferred a large amount of “crime proceeds” from illegal online betting to Chinese nationals outside the country, converting the rupee Indian in crypto currency.
Defendant Naisar Kothari had purchased cryptocurrency on behalf of Chinese nationals and transferred them to unknown wallets on foreign exchanges, the ED said. The illegal online betting syndicate had carried out transactions worth over Rs 1,100 crore.
In June of this year, ED issued a notice of submission to one of the major exchanges in India after the agency failed to track the real beneficiary who laundered more than Rs 2,800 crore at the using cryptocurrency. In two related transactions, the agency found receipt of Rs 880 crore and transfer of Rs 1,400 crore of crypto currency, but none of the transactions had details of the beneficiaries.
In this particular case, the criminals converted the “proceeds of crime†hidden in Indian rupees into “Tether†crypto currency and then transferred them to “Binance Walletsâ€, a crypto wallet service registered on Cayman Island where the illegal money was converted into dollars with the ease of being re-laundered into the legal banking system using shell companies.
This Indian virtual cryptocurrency exchange, according to the ED, provided all Indian rupee to virtual currency conversion services and end-to-end transactions with the utmost secrecy, including person-to-person transactions. abroad.
“None of these transactions are available on the blockchain for audit / investigation. It has been found that customers can transfer valuable cryptocurrencies to anyone regardless of location and nationality without any proper documentation, making it a safe haven for users looking for money laundering / other illegitimate activities, â€the ED said on its recent broadcast. notify one of the crypto exchanges in India.
The government enumerated a bill during the winter session of Parliament to ban all private cryptocurrencies not only to combat the increase in cases of money laundering in the country using the virtual currency, but also to meet the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental watchdog based in Paris.
In a paper published on cryptocurrencies, the FATF noted that many of these exchanges are “designed to avoid scrutiny by regulatory authorities and to help criminals distribute, store and launder the proceeds of credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, drug trafficking and child pornography by allowing them to carry out anonymous and untraceable financial transactions â€.
In one of these cases mentioned by the FATF in its study, a Liberty Reserve entity, with its own cryptocurrency called Liberty Dollars, was dismantled by US law enforcement agencies. The money transmitter has operated on a large scale with over a million users worldwide and over 55 million transactions, all deemed illegal.
In December of last year, the ED arrested a person from Bhavnagar, Gujarat, who transferred a large amount of “crime proceeds” from illegal online betting to Chinese nationals outside the country, converting the rupee Indian in crypto currency.
Defendant Naisar Kothari had purchased cryptocurrency on behalf of Chinese nationals and transferred them to unknown wallets on foreign exchanges, the ED said. The illegal online betting syndicate had carried out transactions worth over Rs 1,100 crore.