Police have unfrozen a bank account of Indian Bitcoin exchange Zebpay as part of their ongoing fraud investigation.
After criminals stole funds worth around $1 mln from the domestic bank- Bank of Maharashtra last week, it was found that some had made their way to Zebpay for trading into Bitcoin.
Together with two other bank accounts, police subsequently froze one linked to Zebpay.
As CEO Sandeep Goenka confirmed the account was again operational, Zebpay appears to have stepped up security, announcing all transactions would now require “compulsory” know-your-customer (KYC) formalities.
This “includes sending/receiving Bitcoins, airtime recharge or buying vouchers,” the exchange said on Twitter.
7th May onwards, KYC is compulsory for all transactions on Zebpay including sending/receiving bitcoins, airtime recharge or buying vouchers pic.twitter.com/8bUaZ278N9
— zebpay (@zebpay) April 27, 2017
The original hack of BoM was possible due to a bug in its Unified Payments Infrastructure application, sources reported last week.
Zebpay, in fact, had minimal exposure to the problems thanks to its already strict KYC compliance.
“Users can only do transactions on Zebpay after submitting KYC documents. All purchase and sale happen (sic) strictly via bank accounts only and no cash,” a lawyer representing the exchange said quoted by Pune Mirror.
“Hence, all transactions are recorded and easily identifiable. All these users were easily identified and we are helping the local agency to recover the funds.”
Nonetheless, the theft is merely the latest in a series of criminal occurrences involving Bitcoin which have made India’s national press.
Zebpay itself felt compelled to produce a statement in March defending Bitcoin’s legality in the country following comments from a government minister appearing to state the contrary.