India has banned the URLs of nine cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, for failing to comply with anti-money laundering legislation

The Financial Intelligence Unit has issued a show cause notice to nine offshore cryptocurrency exchanges for allegedly operating unlawfully in India by failing to comply with the country’s anti-money laundering statute.

In Short

• The FIU has served notice on nine offshore cryptocurrency exchanges.
• MeitY has been advised by the FIU to block the URLs of the nine bitcoin exchanges.
• The nine cryptocurrency exchanges were shut down for failing to comply with India’s anti-money laundering legislation.

The Indian Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has issued a show cause notice to nine offshore cryptocurrency exchanges and asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to block their URLs in India. The action was taken due to apparent noncompliance with Indian anti-money laundering legislation. According to the FIU notification, these nine cryptocurrency exchanges, which include Binance and Kucoin, have been operating unlawfully in India. Binance, Kucoin, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, and Bitfenex are among the nine exchanges that have received the show cause notice.

“As part of compliance action against the offshore entities, Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) has issued compliance Show Cause Notices to following nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA),” according to the show cause notice.