ED Raids CoinDCX and Delta Exchange Over Alleged Crypto Forex Violations

India's Enforcement Directorate knocked on doors in Bengaluru this week, searching three premises tied to two of the country's busiest crypto trading venues. The raids, carried out November 4 and 5, targeted Neblio Technologies — CoinDCX's parent — and Excelium Technologies, which runs Delta Exchange India. The agency says it's chasing large-scale unauthorised cross-border financial transactions involving crypto token derivatives and real world asset tokens, and it's doing it under FEMA, 1999.

The ED's core allegation: both platforms let users trade spot, futures and options, and tokenised shares of foreign companies using crypto — products they weren't cleared to offer. CoinDCX, the agency claims, advertised them anyway. The volume of that activity? Thousands of crores of rupees, according to the directorate, which says it opened the probe after receiving information about alleged forex violations.

Here's the money trail the ED describes. Rupee deposits were converted into stablecoins, mostly USDT, then shipped to overseas platforms including Binance, KuCoin, Gate.io and Bybit — allegedly sidestepping the rules that govern cross-border transfers. For spot trades, the agency says CoinDCX used an account in the name of a Costa Rica-based company, which it called a mere paper entity, with transactions actually executed through CoinDCX's own APIs. F&O orders allegedly got matching positions on foreign platforms via APIs, settled abroad when positions closed. Tokenised stock trades, the ED claims, were routed through Hyperliquid, an overseas decentralised exchange.

The agency also put a price on the plumbing: CoinDCX allegedly paid hundreds of crores in transaction fees to foreign platforms in stablecoins, which it says breaches forex rules. Delta Exchange India didn't escape scrutiny — the ED alleges a big chunk of its derivatives and tokenised-stock volume ran through CoinDCX, which then executed those trades on foreign venues, and that Delta moved hundreds of crores to overseas associate entities. That part is still under investigation.

Delta pushed back fast. The exchange said on X that it cooperated fully with officials, handed over what they asked for, and is not involved in any cross-border transfer of virtual digital assets in any form or manner. CoinDCX has stayed quiet so far. The ED says the fintech products on both platforms appear to have prima facie contravened the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, the SEBI Act, 1992 and the RBI Act, 1934, and the investigation is ongoing.

This isn't a one-off. Days earlier, the ED opened a FEMA probe into Mudrex, Saber.money, the DeFi protocol Instadapp and its platform Fluid over alleged unauthorised cross-border transfers worth more than ₹4,940 Cr. Back in June, it searched six premises linked to Transak, Carret, Xpat, Onramp.money and Onmeta. India's crypto industry is now watching which exchange gets the next knock.