3 months ago
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The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) connected Sunday said that it has filed a prosecution ailment against online existent wealth gaming level Winzo Pvt. Ltd., its directors, and associated subsidiaries nether the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The ailment was filed connected January 23, earlier the Special Court for PMLA cases (CCH-1), Bengaluru. Winzo Pvt. Ltd. has been named arsenic the premier accused on with its directors, Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore. The ED has besides arraigned the subsidiaries owned by the company, including Winzo US Inc. (USA), Winzo SG Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), and ZO Pvt. Ltd.
The probe was initiated based connected aggregate FIRs registered by the Bengaluru CEN Police and constabulary authorities successful Rajasthan, New Delhi, and Gurugram, alleging offences of cheating nether the Indian Penal Code.
In a statement, the ED said that it conducted hunt and seizure operations connected November 18, 2025, and December 30, 2025, connected the Winzo’s bureau premises, the residences of its directors, and the bureau of its accounting firm. These searches reportedly led to the seizure of incriminating documents and physics records and the freezing of movable assets, including slope balances, outgo gateway funds, communal funds, bonds, fixed deposits, and cryptocurrency wallets, valued astatine astir ₹690 crore.
According to the ED, Winzo operated a existent wealth gaming (RMG) level offering implicit 100 games and claimed a idiosyncratic basal of astir 25 crore, mostly from tier-3 and tier-4 cities. While the institution charged users a committee connected betting amounts and assured a bot-free and transparent gaming environment, the probe revealed wide manipulation.
The ED stated that until December 2023, the games were embedded with bots driven by AI and algorithms. Between May 2024 and August 2025, the institution allegedly switched to simulating dormant oregon inactive players’ humanities gameplay information against existent users without their cognition oregon consent. The institution concealed the unscrupulous practices nether misleading presumption specified arsenic ‘Engagement Play’, ‘Past Performance of Player’, and ‘Persona’, according to the ED.
It said that investigators recovered that users were initially lured with bonuses and casual wins to physique trust, aft which harder bots were deployed astatine higher stakes, starring to important losses. The ED estimated that users suffered losses of astir ₹734 crore owed to specified practices, portion morganatic winnings worthy ₹47.66 crore were allegedly withheld.
The grounds recovered besides revealed that this manipulative gaming operation of Winzo caused terrible fiscal distress to users, particularly those from mediocre fiscal backgrounds, and immoderate users reportedly experienced utmost intelligence distress and besides self-harm tendencies, according to the ED.
The bureau has alleged that Winzo generated proceeds of transgression amounting to ₹3,522.05 crore betwixt FY 2021-22 and FY 2025-26 (up to August 22, 2025). These funds were allegedly laundered done ammunition companies successful the U.S. and Singapore, with astir USD 55 cardinal transferred nether the guise of overseas nonstop investment.
The ED claimed that successful the prosecution complaint, it has intelligibly established that the accused persons person knowingly generated, acquired, possessed, utilized and concealed the proceeds of transgression and attempted to task the aforesaid arsenic untainted property.
