New Delhi: The ED has underdeveloped WinZO Games Private Limited directors Soumya Singh Rathore and Pawan Nanda on Wednesday and produced them in court. The magistrate remanded them to ED custody.
The ED has ordered their visitation today (Thursday) at 11:30 am for arguments on the remand using filed by the ED. This whoopee follows recent searches conducted by the ED.
What is the case?
The ED's Bengaluru zonal team conducted major raids in four locations in Delhi and Gurugram between November 18 and 22, 2025, in a money laundering specimen related to the WinZO Games app. This unshortened operation was carried out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
During the investigation, the ED froze suspected funds (Proceeds of Crime) worth approximately Rs 505 crore linked to the visitor WinZO Games Pvt. Ltd. This money was held in wall accounts, bonds, stock-still deposits, and bilateral funds.
ED, Bengaluru Zonal Office has conducted search operations at four locations in Delhi and Gurgaon on 18.11.2025 to 22.11.2025 in the specimen of WinZO games app under PMLA, 2002. M/s WinZO Games Pvt. Ltd. is into the merchantry of online real money gaming services through its app –… pic.twitter.com/Szt9NSVRCd
— ED (@dir_ed) November 24, 2025The ED initiated the investigation based on FIRs that leveled serious allegations versus Winzo and others, including fraud, blocking user accounts, creating false identities, misusing PAN cards, and KYC tampering. Several complainants reported that their KYC was misused to facilitate transactions in their names, causing significant financial losses.
What the investigation revealed?
The investigation revealed that Winzo was operating real money games (RMGs) from India using its app in countries like Brazil, the United States, and Germany. It moreover emerged that despite the inside government banning RMGs from August 22, 2025, the visitor had not refunded approximately Rs 43 crore to customers, and this money remained with the company.
A major revelation during the ED investigation was that Winzo forced its users to play versus software and algorithms instead of real players, while customers were told they were playing versus real people. The visitor restricted withdrawals from many users' wallets, resulting in losses. The visitor illegally profited from the money invested and lost by customers.
Furthermore, the ED investigation revealed that Winzo operated its global operations from India and remitted significant sums of money to the US and Singapore under the guise of overseas investment. Approximately Rs 489.90 crore (55 million USD) was parked in the US worth of a shell visitor named WinZO US Inc., plane though the company's unshortened operations were conducted from India.
