What if you make a deal in lakhs and get the cash and then later you find out that the currency notes are fake.
Raising a police complaint will put yourself at risk because firstly you are evading taxes and secondly you are holding fake currency notes.
You're on point. Having considered how easy one can get scammed off F2F transaction, it's better off to pay the taxes or have a trusted dealer to trade with. There are still reputable and honest traders out there, we just have to find them, maybe by connection from friends but as we do so, it's important you know who you leak information to about trading F2F, not until you get snitched on before you realise some persons you call your friend are actually back stabbers.
The reason why everyone within the Indian cryptocurrency community is trying to avoid the tax is because they are unrealistic. They as in the government never thought what will happen in the real world. They got a suggestion from the bureaucracy and these fools implemented it as it will increase their revenue.
Coming back to 2024 they used tactics to solve the TDS problem by getting popular cryptocurrency exchanges FIU compliant. Then they got the P2P market infested with scammers. I cannot prove it but it is what it is, sudden infestation of scammers surrounding P2P transactions is questionable. Don't you think it? In the end the solution was F2F and we now know where it is now heading.
Stay away from any kind of trade except Indian exchange trading. This is the only solution for the problem everyone is facing in the Indian community.