After the Directorate of Enforcement ED raided one of its directors and frozen bank balances to the tune of Rs 64.67 crore, the WazirX reiterated that the company's operations are as usual and that cash withdrawals are being processed normally.
The exchange tweeted on Sunday evening that operations were as usual, in light of the recent news about WazirX.
The exchange said on Saturday it was fully cooperating with the ED for several days and has responded fully and transparent to all their queries. The company said that it did not agree with the allegations slapped by the ED, and it was evaluating a further plan of action. The enforcement agency on Friday said it had searched on one of the directors of Zanmai Lab Pvt Ltd, which owns WazirX, and has issued a freezing order of their Bank balances.
A search operation was conducted on 3 August 2022 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA because of the non-cooperative stand of the Director of the WazirX exchange.
Sameer Mhatre, Director of WazirX, has a complete remote access to the database of WazirX. ED had said that he was not providing the details of transactions relating to the virtual currency purchased from the proceeds of the crime of Instant Loan APP fraud.
Non-recording transactions onBlockchains to save costs and non-recording of the KYC of the other wallets have ensured that WazirX is not able to give any account for the missing assets, due to the lax KYC norms and loose regulatory control of transactions between WazirX Binance.
It hasn't tried to trace these assets. It has assisted around 16 accused fintech companies in laundering the proceeds of crime using the Crypto route by encouraging obscurity and having lax AML norms.
The enforcement agency said equivalent movable assets to Rs 64.67 crore lying with WazirX were frozen under PMLA, 2002.
The enforcement agency has been involved in a Money Laundering investigation against several Indian non-banking finance companies NBFCs and their fintech partners for predatory lending practices in violation of the RBI guidelines, and using abusive language to extort high interest rates from the loan takers.