As a part of compliance motion towards the offshore entities, Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) has issued present trigger notices to 9 offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) beneath Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
According to an official launch from the Ministry of Finance, “Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) were brought into the ambit of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) framework under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PML) Act in March 2023.”
“As part of compliance action against the offshore entities, Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) has issued compliance Show Cause Notices to the following nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA),” it stated.
As per the discharge, the 9 offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers are Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex.
“Director FIU IND has written to the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of said entities that are operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the PML Act in India,” stated the discharge.
VDA SPs working in India (each offshore and onshore) and engaged in actions like trade between digital digital property and fiat currencies, switch of digital digital property, safekeeping or administration of digital digital property or devices enabling management over digital digital property, and many others. are required to be registered with FIU IND as reporting entities and adjust to the set of obligations as mandated beneath the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002, it stated.
The obligation is activity-based and isn’t contingent on bodily presence in India.
“The regulation places reporting, record-keeping, and other obligations on the VDA SPs under the PML Act, which also includes registration with the FIU IND,” stated the discharge.
To date, 31 VDA SPs have registered with FIU IND. However, a number of offshore entities, although catering to a considerable a part of Indian customers, weren’t getting registered and coming beneath the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) frameworks.
