The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Soumya Singh Rathore and Pawan Nanda, directors of WinZO Games Private Ltd, under relevant sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
They were presented at the judge’s residence in Bengaluru on Wednesday night. The court has remanded them to ED custody.
The court has ordered the accused to be produced again on Thursday for a hearing on the arguments regarding the remand application filed by the ED. This action follows recent searches conducted by the ED.
The ED’s Bengaluru zonal team had carried out raids at four locations in Delhi and Gurugram between November 18 and 22, 2025, in a money laundering case linked to the WinZO Games app. The action was conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. During the investigation, the ED froze suspected proceeds of crime amounting to approximately Rs 505 crore linked to the company WinZO Games Pvt Ltd. This amount was in the form of bank accounts, bonds, fixed deposits, and mutual funds.
The ED initiated its investigation based on FIRs that alleged serious offences by WinZO and others, including cheating, blocking user accounts, creating fake identities, misusing PAN cards, and tampering with KYC. Several complainants reported that their KYC was misused to conduct transactions in their names, causing them significant financial loss.
The probe revealed that WinZO was operating its real money games (RMGs) in countries like Brazil, the USA, and Germany using its app from within India. It also emerged that despite a ban on RMGs by the central government from August 22, 2025, the company did not return approximately Rs 43 crore to its users, and this money remained with the company.
A major revelation from the ED’s investigation was that WinZO forced its users to play against software and algorithms instead of real players, while customers were told they were playing against real people. The company had blocked many users from withdrawing money from their wallets, causing them losses. The company made illegal profits from the money deposited and lost by customers.
Furthermore, the ED’s investigation revealed that WinZO was running its global operations from India and had sent large amounts to the USA and Singapore in the name of overseas investment. Nearly Rs 489.90 crore (USD 55 million) was parked in the account of a shell company named WinZO US Inc in the USA, while all operations of that company were being conducted from India.