In line with India’s Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) announced that it had frozen 77.62710139 BTC on Binance. The ED is the law enforcement and economic intelligence organization of the Indian government.
The action is a part of the ED’s investigation into the mobile game E-nuggets. The Bitcoin was reportedly transferred from WazirX (a popular Indian exchange) to Binance.
According to the law enforcement organization, “Aamir Khan, S/o Nesar Ahmed Khan launched a mobile gaming application namely E-Nuggets, which was designed to defraud [the] public.”
After receiving a sizable donation from the general public, the claimed app abruptly halted withdrawals under various pretexts.
Following that, all data from the aforementioned app servers, including profile information, was deleted.
According to the ED, its investigations revealed that the accused used the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX to send some of the illegally obtained money abroad.
The accused allegedly opened a bogus WazirX account in the name of “Sima Naskar” (Proprietor of M/s Pixal Design) and used it to purchase cryptocurrencies.
The ED further explained, “The balance of said transferred cryptocurrencies, i.e. 77.62710139 bitcoins [equivalent to USD 1,573,466 (Rs 12.83 crore approximately)] at Binance crypto exchange has been frozen.”
Binance was thought to have acquired WazirX in 2019. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) stated that the deal “was never finalized.” He also noted that Binance has never, at any time, owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the company that runs WazirX.
In August, the ED froze WazirX’s bank assets worth more than $8 million. WazirX stated that its bank accounts were unfrozen earlier this month.
The ED also froze $46 million worth of bank and cryptocurrency assets belonging to Vauld, a cryptocurrency platform backed by Peter Thiel.
In August, the government launched an investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange Coinswitch Kuber. The CEO of the exchange, on the other hand, insisted that it had nothing to do with money laundering investigations.
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