# India hosts 11th ARIN-AP meeting with virtual asset freezing on the agenda
Published: 2026-09-30
Author: Keshav Aggarwal
Produced: drafted with AI help from the sources it names, then checked and edited by Keshav Aggarwal.
URL: https://investin.news/originals/india-arin-ap-meet-virtual-asset-freezing

India is chairing the Asia-Pacific asset-recovery network's first New Delhi gathering, where freezing crypto and cross-border confiscation are on the table.

In short

- India hosts the 11th ARIN-AP annual meeting in New Delhi from 28 September to 1 October 2026, under its 2026 presidency.
- The agenda covers freezing virtual assets, cyber-enabled fraud and cross-border asset recovery, according to The Crypto Times.
- The ED says it has executed nearly 90% of international assistance requests received since April 2024, in full or in part.
- No other outlet has confirmed the ED's release, and no user or industry reactions have been seen yet.

### What happened

ARIN-AP is an informal network of law-enforcement and judicial contact points who help each other recover the proceeds of crime across the Asia-Pacific. It lets practitioners swap information directly, alongside formal mutual legal assistance channels. The network now spans 32 member jurisdictions and 10 observers, with INTERPOL, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Bank taking part as observers.

### How it happened

This is the first ARIN-AP annual general meeting India has hosted. The Enforcement Directorate, India's financial-crime investigation agency, joined the network's steering group at the 2024 Sydney meeting and took over the presidency for 2026. Participants in New Delhi include representatives from the Republic of Korea, Australia and Mongolia, plus INTERPOL, the UNODC, the World Bank and the Financial Action Task Force, according to the ED.

The meeting's agenda puts virtual assets inside the wider machinery for tracing, freezing, confiscating and returning criminal proceeds. The ED's release names cyber-enabled fraud involving the rapid conversion of proceeds into virtual assets, the freezing of virtual assets, misuse of payment aggregators and gateways, beneficial ownership, non-conviction-based confiscation, and the restitution and return of recovered assets. It also mentions the INTERPOL Silver Notice, a pilot launched in 2025 to help countries get information about criminal assets held abroad and support later seizure, confiscation or recovery requests. The Silver Notice is not crypto-specific: it can cover property, vehicles, financial accounts and businesses.

For ordinary crypto holders in India, nothing announced at this meeting changes the rules on their wallets today. The agenda is about how agencies cooperate after funds have been identified, not about new powers over users. India's existing framework already applies: since March 2023, specified virtual digital asset activities have sat inside the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. VDA service providers doing exchange, transfer or custody must register with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India as reporting entities and follow anti-money-laundering obligations. India still has no comprehensive standalone law regulating the VDA market, though crypto activities are subject to existing AML and tax rules.

### Who is affected

For traders, the practical question is whether cross-border freezing gets faster. The ED says it wants cooperation across the whole recovery chain: tracing, securing, confiscating, managing and returning assets. Enforcement Directorate Director Rahul Navin told the meeting that international cooperation is strongest in the early stages of a case, while cross-border confiscation, enforcing foreign orders and repatriation can be harder. The ED also said that since April 2024 it has executed nearly 90% of international assistance requests received, in full or in part. That figure covers how requests were handled, not the share of assets ultimately confiscated or returned.

For companies in the sector, the meeting is a signal about where enforcement attention sits. The ED's operational involvement in crypto cases has grown: The Crypto Times has reported on the agency as custodian of seized cryptocurrency, on a Rs 2,500-crore FEMA probe involving the VDA industry, and on ED raids targeting crypto links in a multi-state drug case. The Crypto Times also recently reported a parliamentary panel chief saying the government is "not accepting VDAs, and not regulating them either", which captures the unresolved debate over a broader framework.

InvestIn.News was told that no other outlet has confirmed the ED's release so far, though the meeting is taking place. That matters for how you read the details: the agenda items and the 90% figure come from the ED's own account, and the participants list rests on the same release.

### What people are saying

There have been no reactions from users or the wider industry that InvestIn.News has seen. The writer's own take is that the meeting is a positive step, one that should give the industry more clarity and make investors feel protected.

The market backdrop at the time of writing was calm at the top and softer underneath. Bitcoin traded at $83,361, up 0.17% in 24 hours, and Ethereum at $2,674, up 0.14%, according to InvestIn.News market data at 04:21 UTC on 30 September. Total crypto market value stood at $2.87tn, down 2.31% over the same period, with Bitcoin dominance at 58.29% and the Crypto Fear & Greed Index at 71 of 100, in Greed.

### What happens next

What happens next is mostly internal to the network. The New Delhi meeting runs through 1 October, and India holds the ARIN-AP presidency for 2026. It isn't clear yet whether the discussions will produce any published commitments on virtual-asset freezing, or how they might feed into India's domestic rules, which remain a work in progress.

### Our view

The writer's take is that this is a positive step. It should give the industry more clarity and make investors feel protected. Things are good, at least steps are being taken in a positive way.

### Sources

- The Crypto Times: India Hosts 11th ARIN-AP Meet With Virtual Asset Freezing on Agenda (2026-09-30)