India’s anti-crypto law refrains Indian police to move seized crypto

The police of Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, has recently seized a total of 244 cryptocurrency units (worth $1.2 million) from a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme last year. The police had hired the company Discidium Internet to convert the funds into rupees. However, the funds were blocked in the company’s bank account. Currently, the police are waiting to receive the court’s permission to transfer the funds. 

Jairam Paygude, a cyber police’s senior inspector, revealed that the Central Bank of India was not able to transfer the funds to the State Bank of India’s treasury branch in Pune. This was because the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had suspended the account of Discidium Internet. Discidium Internet has appealed RBI to instruct the Central Bank of India to unfreeze the account. The district government pleader Ujjwala Pawar stated that request to transfer the funds is in the line before the sessions court.

The Indian draft “Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019” will impose 10-year imprisonment who "mines, generates, holds, sells, transfers, disposes of, issues or deals in cryptocurrencies." These harsh measures are forcing local crypto businesses to take the necessary steps to ensure their survival. Rahul Jain, an ex-employee at formerly domestic exchange Bitbns, said:

“As a startup from India, we always wanted to serve from India, but this recent complication has made it difficult for domestic crypto exchanges to operate their businesses in India. So, we are now an Estonia-based company, and any Indian law to criminalize crypto will not impact us.”