wazirx ed investigation: WazirX says ED unfreezes bank accounts; investigation continues – Blue Barrows

New Delhi: In a major relief to crypto exchange WazirX, Enforcement Directorate (ED) unfroze its bank accounts, which were earlier blocked to investigate money laundering acts. That said, the agency would continue to probe the matter.

In a media release on Monday, the crypto exchange said that its bank accounts have been unfrozen after a month. WazirX can now continue its banking operations as usual.

In August, ED conducted searches at the premises of M/s Zanmai Lab Pvt Ltd, the parent company of WazirX and its directors and froze the bank accounts for alleged money laundering.

ED probed at least 10 cryptocurrency exchanges for allegedly laundering more than Rs 1,000 crore, identified as proceeds of crime from the firms accused in the instant loan-app case.

ED is investigating 16 fintech companies and instant loan apps, including WazirX. The agency believes that some of them happened to use the WazirX platform.

WazirX claims to have been cooperating with the investigators by providing them with all the necessary details, information and documents of the alleged accused companies.

“WazirX has a no-tolerance policy towards any illegal activities using its platform and mandates the users to use it for legal and bonafide purposes only. On WazirX, the users undertake to operate as per all the applicable laws,” the exchange said in its blog post.

However, the top management or founders of the company refused to comment when approached by ETmarkets.com. They refused to respond to ETMarket’s query as the matter remains under investigation.

The company, in its statement, 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.

The exchange said it 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 exchange reiterated.

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.

WazirX claims to be the largest crypto exchange based out of India with more than 12 million users, who can buy, sell or trade crypto tokens on its platform.