WazirX receives 1023 requests for data from law enforcement in October-March 2022

• WazirX receives almost three times more requests for data from law enforcement in October-March 2022 vs the previous period of April-Oct 2021
• WazirX is among the largest crypto exchanges in India in terms of trading volumes
• All the requests received from Indian as well as Foreign Enforcement Agencies were related to inquiries that were criminal in nature and WazirX had 100% compliance on these requests
• Over 95% of crypto-associated frauds are based outside of the Blockchain ecosystem

Indian crypto exchange, WazirX, has received 1023 requests from law enforcement agencies during the October 2021 to March 2022. The company said, in its transparency report for the period, that 952 of these requests came from Indian law enforcement agencies, while 71 were from foreign bodies. The total request count almost tripled from the previous period.

WazirX publishes the transparency report voluntarily for its platform every six months. In the April to September period last year, the company received only 377 requests from law enforcement agencies from around the world. From Oct 2021 - Mar 2022, 1023 requests were received and these were related to criminal activities. The exchange responded to them within 22 minutes, while the required time is 72 hours from the time requested .

Source: WazirX Transparency Report, 2nd edition

Further, the report says that 95% of crypto-associated frauds originated from outside the on-chain crypto ecosystem .

WazirX said that crypto ponzi schemes accounted for 40% of the frauds, while phishing scams accounted for another 25%. In addition, impersonation schemes and identity thefts accounted for 25% and 5%, respectively.

Majority of the scams reported were traditional money market scams

Source: WazirX Transparency Report, 2nd edition

Crypto crimes on the rise

The information in WazirX’s report highlights a growing concern among those in the crypto community — that of crypto crimes. Such crimes hit an all-time-high of $14 billion in 2021, according to blockchain tracking firm Chainalysis. In a January 2022 report, the company said that the number stood at $7.8 billion in 2020.

These scams include Ponzi schemes, where fraudsters entice users to spend money on the crypto project, and use money from one investor to pay back another.

On the other hand, in phishing scams, attackers send malicious emails designed to make users click on fraudulent links and attachments, which are designed to steal sensitive data like passwords.