According to reports, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has blocked the transfer of over 77.6 bitcoins from Wazirx to Binance from the Indian cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx.
ED has freezed crypto currencies, 77.62710139 Bitcoins worth Rs 12.83 Cr. approx. under PMLA, 2002, in respect to an investigation conducted against one Aamir Khan & others relating to the Mobile Gamming App., namely E-nuggets. Earlier, ED had seized Rs. 17.32 Cr cash in the case
— ED (@dir_ed) September 28, 2022
The freeze was triggered by an investigation into money laundering using a mobile gambling app, E-Nuggets. As a result, according to reports, Bitcoin was moved from Wazirx to Binance, an Indian exchange.
How did the fraud happen?
As per the law enforcement directorate, Aamir Khan’s mobile game app E-Nuggets was used for scamming the public, and he established the application as a way to make money.
According to ED, Binance complied.
Amir had created a proxy account on wazirX where they were buying crypto and sending to Binance.
A few days ago ED seized funds in another scam case HPZ token.
Seems like ED has targeted scams now and a lot of them used crypto.
— Naimish Sanghvi (@ThatNaimish) September 29, 2022
The claimed app abruptly stopped allowing withdrawals after receiving a significant donation from the general public. The app servers were then wiped clean of all data, including profile information.
According to the ED, some of the unlawfully acquired money was sent abroad using the Indian cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx. According to the ED, the accused created a dummy account with Wazirx under the name Sima Naskar.
As reported by the ED, the balance of the transferred cryptocurrency, 77.627710139 bitcoins, has been frozen at Binance. Approximately Rs 12.83 crore.
A Binance purchase of Wazirx is believed to have occurred in 2019. However, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance CEO, noted that “the deal has never been finalized,” and that Binance “has never owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the business running Wazirx.”
Sad that these have to be debated on Twitter:
Binance provides wallet services for WazirX.
WazirX domain is transferred to our control.
We were given a shared access to an AWS account.We could shutdown WazirX. But we can't, because.. 1/2 https://t.co/YoMIgAHC5v
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) August 5, 2022
A total of more than $8 million in bank assets of Wazirx were frozen by the ED in August. It was announced this month that Wazirx’s bank accounts had been unfrozen. In addition, the ED froze a Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency platform named Vauld after Wazirx.
The ED searched coin switch Kuber, a cryptocurrency exchange, in August. But, according to the exchange’s CEO, money laundering inquiries have nothing to do with the matter.
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