TechFlow, December 5 — According to Decrypt, India's Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) warned in its "India Smuggling Report 2024-25" that cryptocurrencies and stablecoins are increasingly replacing the hawala network as the primary tool for transferring funds related to drug and gold smuggling.
The report指出 that digital assets offer smuggling syndicates "faster anonymous settlements, minimal oversight, and weak anti-money laundering compliance" due to their "decentralized, anonymous, and borderless nature." In one case broken by DRI, a transnational gold smuggling ring laundered over $12.7 million through hawala and USDT. The masterminds used multiple cryptocurrency wallets to layer funds for anonymity and communicated via encrypted apps such as WeChat using VPNs.
