Crypto exchange and lending platform Vauld has been in major turmoil for quite some time. First, they halted withdrawals due to poor market conditions and major losses. And now, Indian authorities freeze Vauld’s assets worth over $46 million or Rs 370 crores. The Indian Law Enforcement Agency is investigating Vauld along with many other major crypto exchanges.
Indian authorities freeze Vauld’s assets worth $46 million
The ED has been on a spree of investigating crypto exchanges in India. First WazirX and now Vauld is being investigated. They tweeted that many premises of the Yellow Tune Technologies were searched by them, and they decided to freeze Vauld’s bank accounts and all funds. Vauld has been operating in India via a subsidiary Flipvolt Technologies which has been under the main investigation here.
The Enforcement Directorate reported that the funds were deposited into Flipvolt’s bank by 23 different entities that were involved in crime and predatory lending. There are also allegations that Yellow Tune has been taking help from Flipvolt to launder fraud money without having to go through bank channels.
ED also reported that the AML norms that Flipvolt has been following are lax. They do not have strict KYC, suspicious transaction reports, checks on the source of funds, or any other mechanism to prevent money laundering. They are accused of voluntarily helping in laundering money. So, the similar amount of money and crypto assets combined that was involved in the same has been frozen until the trail of funds is provided by Flipvolt.
What will happen to Vauld?
First, they paused withdrawals and requested the court to protect them from any legal procedures, and now the ED case. I don’t think if things continue like this, they will be able to survive this bear market. Even WazirX’s assets were frozen by ED, but the amount was much lesser at 64 crores, and they haven’t been facing other issues.
Despite having so many big names backing Vauld, they have messed up real good. In fact, though their base of operations is in Singapore, the company doesn’t have a license to operate there.
Did you have any funds stored in Vauld after listening to so-called influencers on Youtube? If not, then which crypto exchange do you use? Let us know in the comments below. And, if you found our content informative, do share it with your friends.
Also Read: Philippines won’t be taking crypto license applications anymore.
