WazirX received 828 requests from international and Indian law enforcement agencies between April and September

WazirX has received 828 complaints requests from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Interpol, among other international agencies, and Indian law enforcement agencies such as the National Bureau of Investigation (NIA). ), the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), according to the cryptocurrency exchange. Requests were received out of a total of 10 million transactions between April and September 2022. The exchange maintained a record of 100% compliance for all 828 requests received. from the Law Enforcement Agency (LEA), according to a report released by WazirX.

The exchange on Monday released its third version. Transparency report. According to the report, only 0.008 percent of all transactions during this period were reported or investigated by law enforcement. Out of 828 requests received, 764 came from Indian law enforcement agencies, while foreign agencies made 64 requests.

It said the largest number of requests came from regulators and law enforcement agencies in Maharashtra. Illegal transfers, crypto scams, fraud, and forgery are the most common types of crimes reported, just like scams in the traditional financial sector.

Over 700 accounts were blocked during this time. Much of it is due to requests coming from users.

In an ongoing effort to provide transparency to users and protect their assets, it has launched the third edition of its Transparency Report.

The report highlights the company’s initiatives in raising awareness about Web3, assisting law enforcement in identifying bad actors, and implementing an evidence-based referral process to ensure security for users.

“We have also outlined some of the common trends observed in crypto scams during this time period that users should be aware of,” it said.

Several Indian and foreign law enforcement agencies WazirX worked with during this period were: National Investigation Agency, Directorate General of Enforcement, State Cybercrime Division, Integrated Intelligence & Strategic Operations (IFSO) Delhi, Task Force, Bureau of Investigation Drug Enforcement Administration, Bhopal Police, Crime Branch and CID, Toronto Police Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), German Police Service, UK Police, Interpol, Dutch Police, Police Austria, Europol, etc

“We still have some ways to prevent security risks in crypto. The level of awareness about cryptocurrency also needs to extend to its misuses. Only then, adoption. New mainstream can take place in a trusted environment We will continue our efforts to educate Indians about cryptocurrency and comply with regulators to ensure any form of fraud with accounts Virtual digital assets are all disposed of,” said Nischal Shetty, CEO and Founder at WazirX.

According to the report, about 40% of the scams are happening in Ponzi schemes and social engineering scams, 34.7% of cases are in the Impersonation type, 21.1% of the cases are in the Phishing category. scam / Airdrop and 4.2% of other categories.

According to reports, in a recent case, a Bitcoin racquet running from Delhi was notified by CBI when alerted by Austrian police. Impersonators pose as officers of Europol and other law enforcement agencies to tell victims that their identities have been stolen and used for drug businesses. These criminals will target foreign citizens for the same. WazirX’s legal team, with support from Chainalysis, partnered with CBI on this case to stop the activity. They have identified the accounts used to carry out this scam and blocked the recovery of assets obtained from the criminal proceedings.

In one of the first asymmetric asset cases involving cryptocurrencies, WazirX helped Bhubaneswar Police identify the crypto account of an engineer who did not disclose his investment in Technical Assets. number. When thoroughly examined by the team, it was discovered that he had 50 odd crypto wallets and an investment worth Rs. 2 cores.

In another case, the legal team assisted Kolkata police in catching criminals who were defrauding people through a mobile game platform. In this case, a large sum of money was collected from the public through a platform called electronic nuggets. The culprit then disabled the withdrawal and also deleted all data from the app. WazirX helped ED freeze Rs 12.83 Crores crypto assets.

A few months ago, a group of criminals from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, created an elaborate fake trading app to attract customers and scam them out of huge sums of money. WazirX assisted the Ghaziabad Police in real time in identifying the perpetrators that led to their arrest.

In Bandra, Mumbai (Maharashtra), the WazirX team helped identify wallets linked to Chinese lending apps used to trick people through fraudulent transactions. The team worked closely with law enforcement to identify the accused and block their activities with cryptocurrency.

WazirX cooperated with the investigators by providing them with all the necessary details, information and documents of the companies that allegedly used the WazirX platform. After an in-depth internal investigation, WazirX found that most of the users whose information was sought by EDs had been identified by WazirX as suspicious internally by WazirX and had been blocked in 2020-2021. Due to the active cooperation extended by WazirX and active Anti-Money Laundering (AML) testing, suspected users have been identified.

WazirX has also modified the process for making Law Enforcement requests. In order to submit a Law Enforcement request in accordance with the provisions of relevant law, the requester must be a law enforcement agency or government official authorized to Collect Evidence relevant to an investigation or Submit make a formal law enforcement request.

They may email [email protected] from the official law enforcement email ID with a duly authorized written request.

WazirX has continued to align with TRM Labs, a virtual digital asset compliance platform, to maintain and expand its security efforts. It also partners with Chainalysis, a platform for blockchain data analysis. 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 a course on Blockchain Technology to educate individuals. This is a partnership with Gurukula Kangri in Haridwar, a considered university, according to the University Grants Commission (UGC). Since its inception, the course has had more than 20,000 registrations. We recently awarded certificates of completion to over 400 individuals. 7.4% of them are female. Uttar Pradesh state has the highest number of enrollments for the program (25.4%) of all participating states.