WazirX blocked over 700 suspicious accounts between April-September 2022

WazirX app (Image: Shutterstock)

Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX on November 28 said that it had blocked over 700 accounts on its platform between April 2022 and September 2022. Most of these were blocked in relation to illegal fund transfers, crypto scams, cheating, and forgery.

The blocked accounts were a part of the exchange’s 3rd edition of transparency report, which comes at a time when distrust in the crypto community is rising following the collapse of global crypto exchange FTX.

WazirX, during this period received around 828 queries across 10 million transactions from Indian and Foreign Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). Of this, 764 were by Indian Law Enforcement Agencies, whereas the Foreign LEAs made 64 requests.

According to the report, the exchange has been working with LEAs to support them in their investigations around illegal transactions suspected to have been processed using WazirX’s platform. Around 40 percent of the scams were related to Ponzi schemes and social engineering scams, 34.7 percent were regarding impersonation, 21.1 percent for phishing/ airdrop scams and 4.2 percent for other matters.

“According to our data, only 4-5 percent of cases are related to actual blockchain and VDA frauds, which we are assured to address with increased monitoring capabilities. Also, a clear regulatory framework could help with finer detection and resolution,” the report added.

Nischal Shetty, CEO, and Founder, WazirX said,“We still have some way to go to prevent security risks in Crypto. The level of awareness around Crypto needs to extend to its ill uses too. Only then can mainstream adoption take place in an environment of trust. We will continue our efforts to educate Indians about Crypto, and comply with regulators to ensure any form of fraud with virtual digital assets is tackled. ”

Across its last two reports, WazirX had blocked around 14,500 and 17,000 accounts respectively. This time, the report said only 0.008 percent of all transactions were investigated by LEAs in the past six months.

In August this year, WazirX had its run in with the enforcement directorate (ED), which had conducted search at its premises freezing bank assets worth Rs. 64.67 crores. This had led to a public spat between Shetty and it supposed owner Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao claiming that it never owned the Indian exchange.

A month later, WazirX announced that its assets were unfrozen following an investigation by ED.