NEW DELHI: Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a government agency that
tracks money laundering and financial crimes, has sent official
warning notices to 15 foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, the agency
said on Wednesday.
Since March 2023, any company that lets people buy, sell, store, or
transfer cryptocurrency called virtual digital assets (VDA) has to
register with the FIU, even if the company is based outside India.
The federal probing agency said that the notices were issued under
Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
Moreover, the FIU has also separately ordered the takedown of the
entities' apps and URLs for public access in India.
The 15 entities named are Weex (Weex International Exchange Ltd),
Blofin (BLF Global Ltd), Rezorex, Bitunix (Bitunix LLC), DigiFinex
(DigiFinex Ltd), Toobit (Hopeful Technology Co. Ltd), XT.com (Fibtc
Ltd/XT Technical Pte. Ltd), Latoken (LAtrade Ltd), WOO X (Wootech
Ltd), Pionex (Marketa Trading Inc.), ChangeNow (CHN Group LLC),
SimpleSwap (SimpleSwap Ltd), Fixedfloat (FFGX Group LLC), WhiteBIT
(UAB Clear White Technologies) and Guardarian (FinSeven CZ).
VDA service providers were brought under anti money laundering/counter
financing of terrorism framework in March 2023.
The entities engaged in activities such as exchange between virtual
assets and fiat currency, transfer of virtual assets, or safekeeping
and administration of virtual assets are required to register with the
FIU as reporting entities, regardless of whether they are physically
based in India, the agency said.
The agency reiterated that crypto products and non-fungible tokens
(NFTs) remain unregulated in India and carry high risk, with no
regulatory recourse available for losses arising from such
transactions.
