New Delhi : The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money has asked probe agencies to check and curb the use of cryptocurrencies as it reviewed their operation and circulation in the country and links to shady offshore transactions.
Officials said the SIT recently held a meeting in the national capital during which it was briefed about the overall scenario of the operations of this virtual currency in the country.
The SIT, official sources said, called cryptrocurrencies like bitcoins “illegal” and asked probe agencies such as the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to detect and stop their usage and check transactions being done over the Internet, including those with cross-border ramifications. The panel, they said, would also prepare a report that would be submitted to the government in sometime. “The government is the final authority to frame rules and law to regulate these virtual currencies and the SIT would provide its report to it on the subject,” a senior official said.
During the meeting, the NCB informed the SIT that about four cryptocurrency-fuelled drugs smuggling transactions have been unearthed in the country in the last over two years time while the tax department informed the panel about the searches it conducted on bitcoin exchanges across the country last year.
