India investigates a case of a startup previously acquired by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance

The Indian crypto exchange WazirX, owned by Binance, has been accused of violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act, Indian Finance Minister Pankaj Choudhary has announced.

As it became known, the Enforcement Directorate of India is investigating WazirX to find out whether the exchange representatives facilitated the laundering of 2790 million Indian rupees (over $ 350 million) through its platform. WazirX executives, Nishal Shetty and Siddharth Menon, have already been issued show cause notices to appear for questioning.

WazirX was acquired by Binance back in 2019 — since then, Indian regulators have often criticized the independent subsidiary of Binance for not following cryptocurrency exchange guidelines and accused it of facilitating money laundering.

It is worth noting that Binance is also suspected of violating the law — all because of Iranian residents who claimed to have used the crypto exchange to conduct cryptocurrency transactions despite the sanctions imposed on Binance that prohibited them from servicing them. According to the Reuters news agency, 7 Iranian residents (there were probably more such users, but only the above-mentioned persons agreed to talk to journalists) said that they had circumvented the ban on the use of the Binance crypto exchange and used the platform’s services until September 2021.

As a reminder, Philippine analysts have recently appealed to the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines (DTI) to ban the Binance cryptocurrency exchange — analysts claim that Binance has been providing Filipinos with cryptocurrency services for several years without a license that would legally allow such activities.