New Delhi: The Financial Intelligence Unit India (FIU IND) today issued compliance Show Cause Notices to nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs).
The Director of FIU IND wrote to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of these nine entities which it claimed were operating illegally without complying with the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act, 2002, in India.
Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) were brought into the ambit of Anti Money Laundering/Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) framework under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PML) Act, 2002 in March 2023.
The following nine offshore Virtual Digital Assets Service Providers (VDA SPs) have been served Show Cause Notices by FIU IND under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
Virtual Digital Asset Service Providers (VDA SPs) operating in India (both offshore and onshore) and engaged in activities like exchange between virtual digital assets and fiat currencies, transfer of virtual digital assets, safekeeping or administration of virtual digital assets or instruments enabling control over virtual digital assets are required to be registered with FIU IND as Reporting Entity and comply with the set of obligations as mandated under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002.
The obligation is activity-based and is not contingent on physical presence in India. The regulation casts reporting, record keeping, and other obligations on the VDA SPs under the PML Act which also includes registration with the FIU IND.
Till date, 31 VDA SPs have registered with FIU IND. However, several offshore entities though catering to a substantial part of Indian users were not getting registered and coming under the Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) framework, the Ministry of Finance stated.
– global bihari bureau
