Finance minister nirmala sitharaman claims access to whatsapp messages LED to Seizure of Rs 90 Crore Crypto

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman discussed India’s economic reforms and future outline with Lok Sabha MPs in New Delhi. This week, he supported a provision in the Income Tax Bill 2025, which provides access to tax evasion to tax evaders and to keep an eye on financial criminals. He cited a recent case in which a syndicate seized more than Rs 90 crore in Crypto Asset from a syndicate by decrying the WhatsApp message.

Sitharaman warned that encrypted communication channels are being misused for financial crime such as money laundering and tax evasion. Speaking in Parliament, he said that business and individuals can maintain clean manual bookkeeping, but use digital platforms to do financial crime.

Supporting the provision in the new income tax bill, he said that “the Income Tax Act of 1961 has said the bookkeeping (Physical Book of Account) and Manual Records, but the digital record has not been talked about. This has created controversy, because individuals can ask the question that despite showing the bookkeeping, why are they needed in their digital records. The new bill has to be removed.

The Finance Minister said that an undeclared fund of Rs 250 crore was detected through encrypted messages and scanning of mobile phones.

He said that “WhatsApp communication has shown that there are syndicates included in fake bills of Rs 200 crore and examples where the sale of land was manipulated in a capital gains on the sale of land, which reduced by Rs 150 crore to Rs 2 crore. Professional group on WhatsApp has also been implicated. Google Maps History has been implicated. It has been installed, while the Instagram account helped ownership of expensive vehicles associated with benami property. “

Sitharaman did not disclose the deadline to detect, identify and seize these funds. There was also a lack of information about the crypto asset seized in the information given by him. It is not clear whether the encryption of WhatsApp was directly bypassed or a chat from the device seized during the investigation.

Whatsapp encryption broken!

Meta-owned WhatsApp has said that its message between end-to-end encryption users is completely private.

“End-to-end encryption keeps your personal messages and calls between you and the person you are talking. No one outside the chat can read or share them or even WhatsApp can read or share them. This is because your messages with end-to-end encryption are safe from your message lock and you only have the necessary special people and you have to unlock and read them.”

Whatsapp’s head Will Cathcart in Meta has cleaned the platform’s stance on breaking encryption earlier.

The fact remains that scanning everyone’s messages would destroy privacy as we know it. That was as true last year as it is today. @WhatsApp Will Never Break Our Encryption and Remains Vigilant Against Threats to Do So. https://t.co/ihsbohkp8r

– Will Cathcart (@WCATHCART) September 6, 2023

Whatsapp rejected the request of Gadgets 360 to comment on the Finance Minister’s comments. The platform has also not commented on India’s new Income Tax Bill 2025, which provides access to the tax authorization until private communication.