India to develop dark net monitoring tool to combat crypto fraud: Report

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is reportedly developing a crypto intelligence tool in response to a rise in illegal activities around cryptocurrencies in the country. 

According to a CNBC report, the MHA aims to combat crypto-related crime through the Cryptocurrency Intelligence and Analysis Tool (CIAT). The project is spearheaded by an MHA division called the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, which is dedicated to investigating and addressing cybercrime.

With CIAT, the MHA will monitor crypto wallet addresses in the dark net. This will facilitate the compilation of transaction records, including timestamps, dates, exchanges used and which services were done. According to the report, it will also inform the MHA when it detects irregular or unusual crypto activities.

The report highlighted that the project is a response to the rise in crypto-related illegal activities in the country. Earlier this month, an Indian software engineer reportedly lost over $120,000 to crypto fraud. A woman he met online advised the developer to invest in a crypto coin, but he could not withdraw his funds after depositing.

In July, two suspects were arrested in an alleged peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto scam in Ujjain, India. The police seized fake bank accounts, ATM cards and other documents. The suspects allegedly used counterfeit IDs to scam Binance P2P users.

Cointelegraph reached out to the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs but did not get an immediate response. 

Related: Indian state governments spur blockchain adoption in public administration

Crypto has experienced a significant increase in adoption in India. On Sept. 12, the country topped the 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index released by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The report showed that India was number one in terms of decentralized finance value received and centralized service value received. Nigeria and Thailand closely follow India, according to the index.

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