India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) says it has frozen more than 77.6 bitcoins that were transferred to Binance from Indian crypto exchange Wazirx. This is part of an investigation into money laundering in relation to a mobile gaming app.
Indian Authority freezes Bitcoin held at Crypto Exchange Binance
India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) announced Wednesday that it has frozen 77.62710139 bitcoins under the country’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED is the Indian government’s law enforcement and economic intelligence agency.
The freeze is part of the ED’s investigation into a mobile gaming application called E-nuggets. According to the announcement the cryptocurrency was sent from Wazirx in India to Binance. A summary was also posted by the ED on Twitter.
The law enforcement agency explained that “Aamir Khan, S/o Nesar Ahmed Khan launched a mobile gaming application namely E-Nuggets, which was designed for the purpose of defrauding [the] public,” adding:
The public was able to withdraw large amounts of money. However, the app’s withdrawal was suddenly stopped. All data, including profiles and information were deleted from said app servers.
The ED stated that investigations had revealed that some of the money was transferred via Wazirx, an Indian crypto-exchange.
The accused allegedly opened a dummy account in the name of “Sima Naskar (Proprietor of M/s Pixal Design)” with Wazirx and used it to purchase cryptocurrencies, the ED further described, elaborating:
The said crypto currencies were transferred then to an account at Binance.
“The balance of said transferred cryptocurrencies i.e. 76.62710139 Bitcoins [equivalent to USD 1,573,466 (Rs 12.83 crore approximately)] at Binance crypto exchange has been freezed,” the ED wrote.
Binance had been believed to have purchased Wazirx by 2019. However, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) recently said that the acquisition “was never completed,” emphasizing that “Binance has never — at any point — owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the entity operating Wazirx.”
In August, the ED frozen Wazirx’s bank assets in excess of $8 million. Wazirx, however, stated that it had unfrozen its bank accounts earlier this month. The ED froze $46 Million of Vauld’s crypto- and bank assets, following Wazirx. Vauld is a cryptocurrency platform backed Peter Thiel. The agency also searched Coinswitch Kuber, a crypto exchange. The exchange CEO stated that the search was not connected to money laundering investigation.
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