India issues compliance issue notices to nine offshore crypto exchanges

ChainCatcher news, the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Indian Ministry of Finance (FIU IND) has issued compliance notice reasons to nine offshore virtual digital asset service providers (VDA SP) and has written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, requesting to block the URLs of the nine entities that operate illegally in violation of the Indian PML Act. These nine offshore VDA service providers are Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, and Bitfinex.

It is reported that virtual digital asset service providers (VDA SP) operating in India (both offshore and onshore) and engaging in activities such as the exchange between virtual digital assets and fiat currency, transfer of virtual digital assets, or custody or management of virtual digital assets or instruments, must register with FIU IND as reporting entities and comply with a series of obligations stipulated in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002.

As of now, 31 VDA SPs have registered with FIU IND. However, some offshore entities, while catering to a significant portion of Indian users, have not registered and are not bound by anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) frameworks.