WazirX says accused drug dealer ‘Crypto king’ not its client

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Following news reports that Makarand P Adivirkar, who is also known as ‘crypto king’, used multiple bitcoin wallets to facilitate drug payments in India, WazirX, on Friday clarified that the crypto king is not the client of the cryptocurrency exchange.

According to reports, ‘Crypto King’ got arrested on Tuesday by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). He reportedly is accused of dealing with drug dealers in cash, which he used to convert into bitcoin to buy drugs from European countries through the dark web.

WazirX said in a statement, “On 11 June 2021, WazirX had received an email from the NCB enquiring about the said accused and his trading activity on WazirX. Upon checking our records, we identified that the accused is not a WazirX user, and we communicated the same to the authorities on 12 June.”

Statement on the recent news:

On June 11, 2021, WazirX had received an email from the NCB enquiring about the said accused and his trading activity on WazirX. Upon checking our records, we identified that the accused is not a WazirX user, and we communicated the same to the

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— WazirX: Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Exchange in India (@WazirXIndia) June 18, 2021

 “We want to reiterate that WazirX follows global best practices on KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) compliances and has a robust transaction monitoring system in place. We perform a stringent KYC verification of every user to verify their identity as well as perform a secondary KYC verification through linked bank accounts of users before allowing a customer to transact on WazirX,” the exchange’s statement added.

Earlier, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on June 11 issued a show-cause notice to WazirX and its directors Nishchal Shetty and Sameer Mhatre under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) for transactions involving cryptocurrencies worth Rs 2,790.74 crore. The agency initiated the FEMA investigation on the basis of the ongoing money-laundering investigation into Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications.

“During the course of the investigation, it was seen that the accused Chinese nationals had laundered proceeds of crime worth Rs 57 crore approximately by converting the INR deposits into Crypto-currency Tether (USDT) and then transferring the same to Binance (exchange registered in the Cayman Islands) Wallets based on instructions received from abroad,” the agency said in a statement.