New Delhi, September 9, 2026 — The Financial Intelligence Unit of India (FIU-IND) declared 15 offshore Virtual Digital Asset Service Providers (VDASPs) in violation of the country's anti-money laundering law on Wednesday, directing app stores, internet service providers, and domain registrars to remove or block the platforms for Indian users. The regulator cited failures to register, conduct identity checks on customers, maintain transaction records, and file Suspicious Transaction Reports as required under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. Those obligations stem from a March 2023 gazette notification that formally brought VDA service providers under the PMLA, establishing the registration, KYC, and reporting requirements that any entity serving Indian users must now meet regardless of where it is incorporated.

The 15 platforms named in the notices span two categories. Ten are centralized exchanges: Weex, Blofin, Rezorex, Bitunix, DigiFinex, Toobit, XT.com, Latoken, WOO X, and Pionex. The remaining five are swap and on-ramp services that convert fiat currency into crypto: ChangeNow, SimpleSwap, FixedFloat, Guardarian, and WhiteBIT (which operates a full order-book exchange in other jurisdictions but is being targeted in this action for its fiat on-ramp functions in India). None of the named platforms had issued a public response at the time of publication.

FIU-IND used two legal instruments to reach beyond India's borders. Notices to the platforms themselves were issued under Section 13 of the PMLA, which authorizes the FIU Director to issue directions to non-compliant financial reporting entities. Takedown requests to intermediaries were issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which enables the regulator to direct app stores, ISPs, and registrars to remove or block non-compliant platforms.

The regulator's position is that compliance obligations apply to any entity serving Indian users regardless of where the platform is incorporated or where its servers are located.

This is the third significant enforcement wave since late 2023. A first round targeted nine platforms. A second round in October 2025 named 25 platforms, including BingX, LBank, CoinW, CEX.IO, and Poloniex. Wednesday's action brings the cumulative total of formally notified platforms to 49.

The enforcement pattern has produced results in earlier cycles. Binance registered with FIU-IND after receiving a notice and was fined approximately 18.82 crore rupees (roughly $2.2 million) in June 2024 for its prior period of non-compliance. Bybit followed a similar path and was fined 9.27 crore rupees (about $1.1 million) in January 2025. Both platforms are now among the nine offshore exchanges formally registered with FIU-IND. As of July 2026, 54 VDASPs in total hold registered status, including 45 domestic operators such as CoinDCX, WazirX, and ZebPay.

The scale of unregistered offshore activity helps explain the urgency. According to data compiled by KoinX, Indian users traded approximately 4,87,799 crore rupees (around $54.1 billion) on offshore platforms between October 2024 and October 2025, an 85 percent increase year over year. Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance has been told that roughly 91.5 percent of all Indian crypto trading volume flows through offshore platforms. Committee Chairman Bhartruhari Mahtab described the situation as "very alarming" in May 2026.

Parliamentary data, as reported by TechTimes in June 2026, estimates the annual capital outflow at $6.1 billion.

Tax policy is a central driver. India applies a 30 percent flat tax on crypto gains and a 1 percent Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) on transactions, pushing cost-sensitive traders toward platforms outside the domestic compliance perimeter.

The inclusion of swap services and fiat on-ramp tools in this round is notable for developers and regional users. Platforms like ChangeNow, SimpleSwap, and FixedFloat are commonly used as fiat on-ramps within DeFi applications and wallets. Any Web3 product routing Indian users through those services for fiat entry or exit will need to identify compliant alternatives quickly. The IT Act mechanism used by FIU-IND is also broader than a simple website block: it can be applied to API endpoints, cloud infrastructure, and CDN blocks, not only browser-level domain resolution.

The enforcement action lands one week before a critical policy moment. On September 16, the Department of Economic Affairs is scheduled to present oral evidence to Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance in a session focused on "Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs) and Way Forward."

The hearing could result in committee recommendations for a standalone statutory framework governing VDAs, a step that would shift compliance obligations from administrative notices to legislative mandates. The Reserve Bank of India continues to favor prohibition of crypto assets, while the Securities and Exchange Board of India has been positioned as a potential regulator. How those institutional tensions resolve will determine the trajectory of India's current enforcement model, which focuses on registration and reporting rather than outright bans, and analysts across the compliance and policy communities are watching the September 16 session closely for early signals.

For platforms in the current list willing to engage, the precedents set by Binance and Bybit suggest a path forward: register with FIU-IND, implement KYC, transaction monitoring, and travel rule obligations, file Suspicious Transaction Reports, accept any applicable penalty, and re-enter the market with compliant infrastructure.

India's approach is drawing attention well beyond South Asia. Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission and South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority are each developing comparable VDA registration frameworks, and the outcomes of this third enforcement wave may inform how those regulators calibrate their own compliance timelines and enforcement scope.

Whether the economics of India's tax environment make the compliance effort worthwhile is a calculation each of the 15 named platforms will now need to make.