Recently, WazirX, India's largest cryptocurrency exchange announced its partnership with TRM Labs, a leading blockchain analytics provider, in order to enhance anti-money laundering and anti-fraud measures for transactions conducted on the platform.
Well, the announcement comes amid WazirX's preparations going on to respond to Directorate of Enforcement notice, which had sought an explanation into transactions amounting to INR 2,790.74 crore that, the ED alleged last month, were in violation of foreign exchange rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
According to a report from ET On June 18, the Mumbai wing of the Narcotics Control Bureau had sought explanations from the crypto exchange about an alleged drug dealer who, according to the agency, used the platform to deal in contraband.
The collaboration with TRM Labs will help WazirX, build confidence in the authorities, who it says have exhibited concern that crypto assets are being used for financial criminal activity like money laundering and funding terrorism, which signals that the exchange needs to have a robust capability to discover and prevent illicit activity from occurring on its platform.
Source: WazirX
TRM Labs offers services such as crypto compliance and risk management, including tools for wallet screening, transaction monitoring and investigations. It's monitoring capability covers over 360,000 digital assets across more than 20 blockchains, including Ethereum, Cardano, Bitcoin, Binance Smart Chain, Dogecoin, and others, representing the most extensive asset coverage in the industry.
Nischal Shetty, founder and
CEO of WazirX said "Ensuring that our operations are secure and compliant with global regulatory requirements is critical to our success; at the same time, we want to meet our customers' expectations for fast, seamless transactions. TRM's platform helps us achieve this balance with an AML (Anti Money Laundering) solution that's easy for large compliance teams to use, but also underpinned by best-in-class blockchain analytics,"