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The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India dismantled the dark web drug network Team Kalki. Binance and the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) provided blockchain analysis and wallet tracking to assist investigators in tracing cryptocurrency flows, identifying associated wallets, and freezing relevant crypto assets.Investigators stated that Team Kalki used the encrypted communication platform Session, the dark web forum Dread, and "dead drop" delivery methods to distribute drugs from international suppliers. Law enforcement seized thousands of drugs from domestic and international packages associated with the network. S.B. Seker, head of Binance Asia Pacific, stated that the transparent infrastructure of blockchain enables law enforcement to more effectively track and investigate illegal transactions. Binance CEO Richard Teng posted on X that Binance and DSCI are assisting the NCB in combating this dark web drug network by tracking on-chain fund flows.

According to FinanceFeeds, the Indian Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance has recommended that the government establish a temporary regulatory mechanism led by recognized Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs) to oversee the domestic cryptocurrency and virtual digital asset market. The committee warned that the lack of a clear legal framework exposes millions of retail investors to operational, custodial, and fraud risks.The SRO will implement standardized codes of conduct under the direct supervision of the Reserve Bank of India or the Securities and Exchange Board of India, covering consumer protection, platform transparency, and token disclosure standards, and will be responsible for auditing exchange reserves, mandating the segregation of customer funds from corporate funds, and establishing user complaint handling channels. The committee emphasized that the temporary SRO must operate under strict oversight from the central bank or the securities regulator to address macroeconomic risks such as cross-border capital flows, dollarization of stablecoins, tax evasion, and violations of foreign exchange management laws.

On July 18 to 19, the Bangalore branch of the Indian Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at multiple locations involved in a virtual asset over-the-counter trading scam targeting overseas investors, based on the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).The criminal gang claimed to supply tokens such as MultiversX, Kava, BEAM, GRASS, SUI, VANA, and AGLD at discounted prices through private social channels, thereby enticing foreign investors to invest funds. The total amount involved in the case is approximately $35 million, initially reported by a Dutch entity.This operation has seized electronic devices, wallet credentials, and cryptocurrency assets worth 8,700 USDT. Law enforcement agencies are continuing to expand leads and dig deeper into the complete criminal chain.

According to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the state is advancing the drafting of the "Maharashtra Land Token Asset Digitalization and Exchange Bill (DELTA Act)." Fadnavis chaired a related meeting, instructing officials to study global laws and regulations as well as best practices, and established an expert committee composed of representatives from SEBI, BSE, NSE, and professionals to formulate a complete legislative framework.According to the proposal, real estate will be tokenized through blockchain technology, with the entire transaction completed on-chain. This move aims to unlock the potential value of real estate, create new sources of revenue, and help Maharashtra achieve its goal of a $1 trillion GDP by 2030. If the legislation is implemented, Maharashtra will become the first state in India to introduce such regulations.

According to monitoring by Catcher Predict, in the Polymarket event "ODI Series England vs India," the winning probability of the option "England" has experienced significant fluctuations, dropping sharply from 76.5% an hour ago to the current 61.5% (a fluctuation of 15%). Please note the impact of related breaking news.

According to Magzter, the Indian Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at 19 locations from July 10 to 11 in a money laundering investigation involving online investment fraud and "work from home" scams, including 16 locations in Tamil Nadu, 2 in Kerala, and 1 in Srinagar.During the operation, approximately 335 million rupees in cryptocurrency, 145,000 rupees in cash were seized, and over 400,000 rupees in bank accounts were frozen, while documents, electronic devices, and bank records were confiscated.

India imposes a uniform 30% tax on the income from virtual digital assets and an additional 1% withholding tax on the transfer amount. Approximately 54 cryptocurrency service providers in the country have registered with the financial intelligence department, serving 39 million verified users, who collectively hold about $2.1 billion in assets.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has repeatedly expressed to Parliament its preference for a prohibitive policy towards private cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, urging banks to avoid related exposures to protect financial stability. The long-promised cryptocurrency bill has yet to be completed.Indian government agencies are also using permissioned blockchain in non-trading scenarios. AIIMS Delhi uses blockchain to manage teacher recruitment records, the Cotton Corporation of India tracks cotton bales through a blockchain identification system, and the aviation regulator DGCA is building a digital service platform associated with blockchain.

According to TechCrunch, Indian AI programming startup Emergent has completed a $130 million Series C funding round, with a post-money valuation of approximately $1.5 billion, an increase of about 5 times from a $300 million valuation in January this year. This round was led by private equity firm Creaegis, with participation from MNI Ventures-Claypond, Sentinel Global, as well as Khosla Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund II, Lightspeed, Y Combinator, among others, bringing the total funding to $230 million.Emergent focuses on providing an "engineering team as a service" AI programming platform for small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs. It currently has an annual revenue of approximately $120 million, with a growth of about 70% in the past four months, and over 200,000 paying users, serving industries including logistics, manufacturing, construction, and property management.

According to Jinshi reports, the Indian Sensex index is expected to record its largest single-day drop in two months.

According to Reuters, the Reserve Bank of India reiterated its call for a "tendency to ban" cryptocurrency policies, while the country's tax department warned that transactions conducted through offshore exchanges are difficult to trace. These documents reveal that, although the government has not yet implemented policies to ban or regulate cryptocurrency, major government agencies in India tend to favor stricter restrictions on virtual digital assets.Since a court ruling in 2018 declared the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) policy effectively banning cryptocurrency invalid, India has allowed cryptocurrency to remain in a gray area. Legislation drafted in 2021 aimed at banning private cryptocurrencies was never submitted for parliamentary consideration, and a discussion paper on the topic has also been postponed multiple times. The government has delayed the implementation of a formal virtual asset policy, stating that any plan should balance innovation and risk management while protecting monetary sovereignty, financial stability, and preventing consumer losses.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reiterated its support for a regulatory strategy of "containment and a tendency to prohibit" regarding crypto assets in a document submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, stating that "prohibition" remains one of the policy options recognized by the international regulatory framework. The RBI suggested that banks and other regulated financial institutions should not hold, trade, or provide exposure to crypto assets and privately issued stablecoins to avoid potential contagion risks to the financial system.The RBI stated that implementing traditional financial regulation on crypto assets could mislead the market, granting "legitimacy" to speculative assets that lack actual economic value and creating a false sense of security for users. The RBI also warned that the widespread use of stablecoins could undermine India's monetary sovereignty, weaken the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, disrupt the payment system, and pose risks to financial stability. Therefore, it recommended prioritizing the development of sovereign digital payment infrastructure such as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Additionally, the RBI questioned the relevant rankings claiming "India is the country with the highest global crypto adoption rate," arguing that the data from private blockchain analytics firms has methodological flaws. It pointed out that there are currently 54 crypto service providers registered with the FIU in India, with approximately 39.3 million users who have completed KYC verification holding crypto assets worth about 20.437 billion rupees. It should be clearly distinguished between speculative crypto assets and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) such as government bonds and corporate bonds to avoid impacting the innovation of financial asset tokenization.

According to a report by Economictimes, due to regulatory crackdowns, there is a severe supply shortage of local stablecoins like USDT in India, causing their premiums in the local market to rise to over 8.5%.The report pointed out that Indian law enforcement had previously taken action against institutions providing cryptocurrency foreign exchange services, cutting off remittance channels commonly used by overseas Indians, which in turn affected the supply of USDT in India. Currently, the trading price of USDT in the local market of India is significantly higher than the international parity level.

Amazon announced plans to invest an additional $13 billion to expand its AI and cloud computing infrastructure in India. Combined with its previously announced $35 billion investment plan in 2025, Amazon's total investment in India will reach $48 billion from 2026 to 2030.It is reported that the new funding will focus on expanding the capacity of AWS data centers located in Mumbai and Hyderabad, providing customized AI chips, AI hosting services, and reliable cloud technology support for local startups, enterprises, and government agencies. In addition, Amazon plans to add more than 20 operational centers and over 100 distribution stations across India this year to deepen its e-commerce and logistics business layout. It is expected that by 2030, Amazon's cumulative total investment in India will exceed $88 billion.

"On-chain detective" ZachXBT published a case analysis stating that in a cryptocurrency asset case involving an Indian scam gang, the relevant individuals reported the case to law enforcement after their assets were frozen, drawing attention. The incident began when a user sought help, claiming that approximately 5.73 BTC (about $475,000) was frozen on Changelly in March 2025.Subsequent on-chain analysis revealed that these funds could be traced back to multiple social engineering attacks and theft cases related to Bitcoin ATMs targeting U.S. users, with a total amount involved exceeding $1 million and several elderly victims. The investigation showed that the individual provided multiple changing explanations for the source of the funds, including "loan," "boss transfer," and "investment from 2014-2015," and there were significant contradictions in the evidence chain.More concerning is that this user had previously filed a police report in India in December 2025, attempting to recover the frozen funds (case number 3207-P/2025). Subsequent on-chain evidence collection and email data analysis indicated that they might be a "mule" for transferring funds, with some bank documents inconsistent with their identity information. ZachXBT noted that such cases demonstrate that social engineering attacks and cross-border fund transfers continue to occur and remind users to avoid interacting with funds from suspicious sources to prevent triggering compliance freezes or legal risks.

According to Cryptopolitan, India's financial intelligence agency has requested three major local cryptocurrency exchanges to provide information on over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency transactions valued at over $10,000.The directive requires exchanges to maintain OTC records since January 2026, focusing on beneficial ownership, particularly transactions where private companies or intermediaries may conceal the true owners of funds. OTC transactions are negotiated directly between the platform and clients, helping large buyers avoid public market price fluctuations, but also increasing the risk of lack of transparency, thus being viewed by regulators as high-risk channels for money laundering, tax evasion, and cross-border capital flows.India remains one of the largest cryptocurrency markets globally, but there is no official data on the size of the OTC market.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India has submitted a charge sheet to the PMLA special court in Dwarka, New Delhi, formally accusing Chirag Tomar and his accomplices of participating in a cryptocurrency phishing scam worth approximately $20 million. Investigations reveal that the gang executed attacks by hijacking SEO related to a counterfeit "Coinbase Pro" phishing website, luring users to input account information and further deceiving them into providing 2FA verification, thereby remotely transferring the victims' crypto assets. The funds were subsequently split into thousands of wallets and laundered through P2P transactions with local trading platforms. The case is coordinated with U.S. federal law enforcement actions.Previously, Tomar was arrested by the FBI in the U.S. and sentenced to 60 months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Indian ED stated that it has obtained key evidence through international judicial cooperation and has frozen 129 bank accounts related to the case and assets amounting to approximately 645.5 million rupees, with the involved funds and properties undergoing further recovery and forfeiture procedures.

Zelle operator Early Warning Services announced that India will be the first country for U.S. users to remit money to overseas friends and family through Zelle, with the service expected to launch by the end of this year. The company also introduced its own dollar-backed stablecoin ZelleUSD (ZLUSD) to support future international payment capabilities in other markets, with more details to be announced in the coming months. Early Warning Services is jointly owned by seven U.S. financial institutions, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

As India's tax enforcement intensifies, cryptocurrency investors face stricter reporting and compliance requirements in the 2026 tax season, with incorrect declarations potentially triggering fines and audits. Reports indicate that under current rules, cryptocurrency gains are still subject to a 30% uniform capital gains tax, and a 1% Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) is levied on transactions exceeding a certain amount, while losses cannot be offset across assets. The new Income Tax Act (2025) came into effect on April 1, 2026, but the core tax framework remains largely unchanged.In terms of reporting, investors must fill out a dedicated Schedule VDA section in the ITR-2 or ITR-3 forms and are required to record each transaction individually, including all operations such as trading, exchanging, transferring, and clearing, rather than just summarizing gains. The report emphasizes that regulatory focus has clearly escalated. The Indian tax authorities will directly obtain user-level transaction data through trading platforms, custodians, and wallet service providers, and will automatically cross-check this with reported information; discrepancies will trigger system flags and audits.Data shows that the Indian tax authorities have issued over 44,000 notices and discovered approximately 88.8 billion rupees (about 930 million USD) in unreported virtual asset income. Meanwhile, the tax department is enhancing its tracking capabilities by combining on-chain analysis tools with international data-sharing mechanisms. Additionally, starting in 2027, India will align with the OECD cryptocurrency reporting framework to achieve automatic exchange of cross-border transaction data, and overseas exchange holdings will gradually come under regulatory scrutiny.Analysis points out that common errors include misuse of reporting forms, omission of airdrop and staking income, and failure to correctly match 1% TDS records, among others. The report emphasizes that cryptocurrency tax compliance is shifting from "post-reporting" to "real-time traceability," and investors need to strengthen year-round record management.

According to the Economic Times, the Indian tax department has strengthened its review of cryptocurrency tax filings for the fiscal year 2026, discovering over 88.8 billion rupees (approximately 10.4 million USD) in unreported virtual digital asset income, and has issued more than 44,000 notices to the relevant taxpayers.