ED arrests founders of Winzo Games on money-laundering charges

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda, Directors of Winzo Games Pvt Ltd and they will be produced in court on Thursday for seeking custody by the anti-money-laundering agency.

The arrest came after searches were conducted by the ED recently on its premises.

On November 24, the ED, in a statement, had alleged that funds of Rs 43 crore of gamers were "held" by the company and that these should ideally have been refunded to players after government had banned real-money gaming.

The ED had raided the premises of WinZO and Gamezkraft, another company offering online gaming, and their promoters last week under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED had accused WinZO of “engaging in criminal activities and unscrupulous practices as customers were made to play with algorithms without being made aware of the fact that they are playing with the software and not with humans in real-money games”.

It said WinZO was operating real-money games (RMGs) in countries such as Brazil, the US and Germany, from India (on the same platform used by the Indian entity).

“Even after the ban of RMGs by the Union government (with effect from August 22, 2025), an amount of Rs 43 crore is still held by the company without refunding to the gamers/customers," the ED had alleged.

It said bonds, fixed deposits, and mutual funds worth Rs 505 crore "possessed" by WinZO Games, were frozen under the PMLA.

WinZO, the ED alleged, had also prevented or limited withdrawals of money held by the customers in the wallets and generated alleged illicit funds in the form of bet amounts placed and lost by real customers through the "unscrupulous" use of algorithms/software.