The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Bengaluru zonal office, has provisionally attached movable properties worth about $56 million (Rs 505 crore) held by real money gaming company Winzo in its bank accounts in the US and Singapore in connection with the ongoing probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The funds were held in the names of overseas shell companies of Winzo and operated and controlled by founders Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore, ED said in a statement.
ED officials conducted search and seizure operations at the Winzo office and the residential premises of its director as well as the company’s accounting firm in November and December last year.
The evidence gathered during the search and subsequent investigation revealed, according to an ED statement, that the company was engaged in criminal activities and unscrupulous practices: that customers were made to play with bots/AI/algorithms/software (termed as PPP/EP/Persona) and not with humans in real money games. The company also prevented or allowed limited withdrawals of money held by the customers in the wallets of Winzo.
Winzo also generated proceeds of crime in the form of ‘rake commission’ from matches played by bots with real players on its app. The app induced people to play more by using bots and by restricting cash withdrawals. With these methods and through the rake commission route, the company appropriated customers’ funds.
The cumulative effect of this mechanism enabled the company to systematically convert users’ deposits into revenue, i.e., rake commission. This way, the company derived proceeds of crime of about Rs 3,522 crore for the financial years 2021-22 to 2025-26 (till August 22, 2025), the ED statement said.
The ED has, till now, frozen movable properties of about Rs 689 crore. The company has taken a part of the direct proceeds of crime to the US and Singapore under the garb of overseas investments, the statement added.
The company, however, conducted all its operations and day-to-day business activities and managed bank accounts from India. The company parked $55 million in its bank accounts in the US and Singapore.
The ED has filed a prosecution complaint before a special court on January 23. The ED has, so far, attached/frozen Rs 1,194 crore in connection with the case.
