India’s USDT premium hits 8.5% after Enforcement Directorate raids on crypto payment firms

USDT is now trading in India at an average 8.5% above par, with the gap widening after the Enforcement Directorate raided crypto-transfer companies in Bengaluru on 17 June. For PSPs and crypto payment processors, this is the usual high-risk story in miniature: when official rails get harder to use, stablecoins become the workaround, until enforcement narrows supply.

1. On local platforms over the weekend, USDT traded at 102.88 Indian rupees, while the interbank USD/INR rate was 94.65 rupees. The normal spread is said to sit in the 3-4% range, so the current premium is well above the market’s usual pricing.
2. The jump followed Enforcement Directorate raids on six premises in Bengaluru on 17 June under foreign exchange law enforcement. Five crypto payment companies were targeted, and the regulator said they had facilitated unauthorized cross-border transfers worth more than 2,500 crore rupees ($265 million) using digital assets.
3. According to the authorities, non-residents used USDT as an alternative to bank transfers. The alleged flow was straightforward enough: rupees were credited to company accounts, converted into stablecoins, sent abroad, and then sold on Indian exchanges. That bypassed documentation and authorization requirements that apply to official remittance channels under anti-money-laundering rules.
4. The model had reportedly been running for about two years and had demand because USDT transfers were faster and cheaper. The premium also made the economics more attractive for users, since they received more rupees than they would through traditional dollar transfers via banks. After the raids, market makers and liquidity providers reduced USDT purchases for fear of similar action, which further tightened domestic supply, according to The Economic Times.
5. Indian authorities have already been tightening the screws on crypto platforms. Since January, users of regulated exchanges must verify identity with a real-time selfie, with photos checked by software that tracks eye and head movements. Exchanges also have to collect clients’ geolocation data, IP addresses, and account creation timestamps. A few weeks later, the Financial Intelligence Unit of India ordered crypto exchanges and platforms to stop dealing in privacy tokens such as Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC), and licensed venues were required to delist them.

One more data point worth watching: in an anti-money-laundering report, Indian authorities said 84% of illegal virtual-asset transaction volume in 2025 involved stablecoins, or about $154 billion. For anyone running payments in or into India, the message is plain enough: the regulatory perimeter is moving toward the on-ramp, the exchange, and the token itself, not just the obvious cash-out point.