Compared to this, in the previous period between October 2021 and March 2022, the platform had received 1,023 requests.
In the current period, of the total LEA requests received by WazirX, 764 were from Indian authorities while the remaining 64 were from foreign law enforcement agencies.
“WazirX promptly provided all information as sought, and our compliance rate in record timeliness and accuracy was 100%. Apart from that, blocking of over 700 accounts was also initiated based on our internal transaction monitoring process and/or directives from the LEAs,” the company said, adding that its average turnaround time for responding to LEA requests was 18 minutes.
“We still have some way to go to prevent security risks in crypto. The level of awareness around crypto needs to extend to its ill uses too. Only then can mainstream adoption take place in an environment of trust,” said
Nischal Shetty, CEO and founder of WazirX. “We will continue our efforts to educate Indians about crypto, and comply with regulators to ensure any form of fraud with virtual digital assets is tackled”.
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Among the scams that were being investigated — for which WazirX received LEA requests — the majority belonged to the impersonation and phishing categories, followed by Ponzi schemes and social engineering scams.
In its report, the platform also mapped state and region-wise criminal behaviour. “The most number (sic) of requests came in from regulators and law enforcement agencies in Maharashtra. The charges were criminal in nature, with most of them being fraudulent transactions, scams, cheating, loan app frauds, etc,” the report noted.
“West Bengal/Eastern Region recorded a large number of cases related to identity theft, money laundering, fund misappropriation, etc,” it said, adding that foreign LEA requests pertained to identifying wallets accused of identity theft and scams, freezing of assets, temporary asset withdrawal suspension, monitoring asset flow, etc.