WazirX Received 828 Requests From Law Enforcement In April-September
WazirX received 828 complaints from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Interpol, among other international agencies, and Indian law enforcement agencies such as the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate ( ED), and the Central Bureau of Investigation. (CBI), according to the cryptocurrency exchange. Applications were received for a total amount of 10 million between April-September 2022. The exchange maintained its record of 100% compliance rate for all 828 applications received from Legal Entities (LEAs), said a report released by WazirX.
The exchange on Monday released its third plan Clear reports, According to the report, only 0.008 percent of all transactions during this period were reported or investigated by law enforcement agencies. Of the 828 inquiries received, 764 were from Indian law enforcement agencies, while foreign agencies made 64 requests.
The largest number of requests came from regulators and law enforcement agencies in Maharashtra, he said. Illegal money transfers, crypto scams, fraud, and fraud were the most common types of crime reported, similar to scams in the traditional financial sector.
More than 700 accounts have been blocked at this time. Most of them were due to requests from users.
In its continued effort to provide users with complete transparency and protect their assets, it has launched the third edition of the Transparency Report.
The report highlights the company’s efforts in raising awareness about Web3, assisting law enforcement in identifying bad actors and implementing an evidence-based process to ensure user safety.
“We also highlighted common trends seen in crypto scams during this period that users should be aware of,” he said.
Some of the Indian and Foreign Law Enforcement Agencies WazirX has worked with during this time are: National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate, State Cyber Crime Cells, Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Ops (IFSO) Delhi, Special Task Force, Narcotics Control. Bureau, Bhopal Police, Crime Branch and CID, Toronto Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), German Police Agencies, United Kingdom Police, Interpol, Dutch Police, -Austrian Police, Europol, etc.
“We still have some way to go to avoid security risks in crypto. The level of awareness about crypto needs to go beyond its misuse. Only then will mainstream adoption take place in an environment of trust. We will continue our efforts to educate Indians about crypto, and comply with regulators to ensuring any kind of fraud with digital assets is dealt with,” Nischal Shetty, CEO and Founder at WazirX.
According to the report, about 40 percent of scams are Ponzi schemes and social engineering scams, 34.7 percent are impersonation cases, 21.1 percent are Phishing / Airdrop Scams and 4.2 percent are in other categories. .
As per the report, in a recent case, a Bitcoin racket running from Delhi was brought to the attention of the CBI when it was alerted by the Austrian police. Fraudsters pose as officials from Europol and other law enforcement agencies to tell their victims that their identities have been stolen and are being used for drug businesses. Criminals would target immigrants. WazirX’s legal team, with help from Chainalysis, joined the CBI in this case to block the operation. They identified the accounts that were used to make this racket and prevented the withdrawal of the assets obtained during the trial.
In one of the first disproportionate assets cases involving crypto, WazirX helped the Bhubaneswar Police identify the crypto accounts of a developer who did not disclose his investments in Digital Assets. After investigating the team, it was found that he had 50 odd crypto wallets and an investment worth Rs. 2 crores.
In another incident, a law enforcement team helped the Kolkata police in nabbing criminals who were defrauding people with a mobile playground. In this case, a sum of money was collected from the public using a platform called e-nuggets. The hackers then disabled the withdrawal and deleted all data from the app. WazirX helped ED freeze crypto assets worth Rs 12.83 Crores.
A few months ago, a gang from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, developed a sophisticated fake trading app to lure customers and dupe them out of huge sums of money. WazirX helped the Ghaziabad Police in real time in identifying the identities of the criminals which led to their arrest.
In Bandra, Mumbai (Maharashtra) the WazirX team helped identify wallets linked to Chinese lending apps that were being used to defraud people. The team worked closely with law enforcement agencies to identify the suspect and block their crypto activities.
WazirX cooperates with the investigators by providing them with all the necessary information, details, and documents of the suspected companies using the WazirX platform. After a thorough internal investigation, WazirX realized that most of the users whose information was sought by ED had already been identified as suspicious by WazirX internally and blocked in 2020-2021. Thanks to the active cooperation extended by WazirX and effective Anti-money Laundering (AML) checks, the suspected users were identified.
WazirX has also changed the process to raise a request for Law Enforcement. To submit a Law Enforcement request under the relevant legal provisions, the requester must be a law enforcement agent or government official authorized to collect evidence related to the investigation or make a lawful request for law enforcement.
They can send an email to legal@wazirx.com from the official email ID of the legal institution and a duly authorized written request.
WazirX has continued its partnership with TRM Labs, a virtual digital asset compliance platform, to standardize and enhance its security efforts. It has also partnered with Chainalysis, a blockchain data analysis platform. WazirX has also joined hands with other industry players in the country to form a new crypto advocacy group called Bharat Web3 Association (BWA).
WazirX has launched Blockchain Technology courses to educate individuals. This was in collaboration with Gurukula Kangri in Haridwar, which is considered a prospective university, according to the University Grants Commission (UGC). Since its inception, the course has seen over 20,000 people sign up. We have recently certified more than 400 people. 7.4 percent of them were women. Uttar Pradesh saw the highest enrollment in the program (25.4 percent) among all the participating states.
