Binance-linked WazirX says India unfreezes bank accounts

BENGALURU (Reuters) -WazirX, linked to the world's largest digital currency exchange Binance, said on Monday its bank accounts were unfrozen by India's financial crime-fighting agency after more than a month.

The federal Enforcement Directorate (ED) had launched its investigation last year into the company for suspected violations of foreign exchange regulations and froze its assets worth 646.70 million rupees ($8.16 million).

WazirX said it is now in a position to continue its banking operations as usual.

"After an in-depth internal investigation, WazirX noticed that most of the users whose information was sought by ED were already identified as suspicious by WazirX internally and were blocked in 2020-2021," the company said in a blog. https://wazirx.com/blog/update-on-ed-investigation-wazirx-continues-cooperation-bank-accounts-unfrozen/

WazirX said it has cooperated with the investigators by providing all the necessary details, information, and documents of the alleged accused companies who used its platform.

After announcing its acquisition of WazirX in 2019, Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao last month said the transaction was never completed.

Nischal Shetty, co-founder of WazirX, however, has reiterated that WazirX was acquired by Binance. (https://bit.ly/3B5LuhP)

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)