NEW DELHI: A Delhi
court
has directed
police
to register an FIR and investigate a case of alleged illegal transactions of
Bitcoin cryptocurrency done through online virtual currency transaction platform “Binance”. The court directed police to probe the roles of the accused, complainant and portal “Binance” in the case.
Complainant Hitesh Bhatia had said that he dealt in sale and purchases of Bitcoins. Bhatia claimed that the accused, Kumar Vivekanand, had purchased Bitcoins from him multiple times and had transferred funds to his bank account in return. Bhatia had transferred the Bitcoins into the accused’s virtual wallet on the online transaction portal “Binance”.
In June 2020, he was informed that his bank accounts have been frozen, and his transaction in Bitcoins were marked as alleged illegal transactions. The complainant stated that when he confronted the accused regarding that legality of the money paid against the Bitcoins, Kumar allegedly admitted that these payments were a “scam” and refused to return the Bitcoins.
Metropolitan Magistrate Abhinav Pandey said transactions in cryptocurrency had to comply with the general law in force in India, including PMLA, IPC, FERA, NDPS Act, Tax laws, and with the RBI regulations regarding KYC (know your customer), CFT (Combating of funding of terrorism) and AML (Anti-money laundering requirements).
Usha Das