{"id":777035246,"date":"2025-11-27T11:05:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T14:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777035246"},"modified":"2026-04-21T16:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:35:17","slug":"india-arrests-winzo-co-founders-over-%e2%82%b9505-crore-money-laundering-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/india-arrests-winzo-co-founders-over-%e2%82%b9505-crore-money-laundering-allegations","title":{"rendered":"WinZO co-founders arrested amid money laundering allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The arrest follows the ED’s raids on WinZO, Gamezkraft and promoters under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

India.- India’s Enforcement Directorate has arrested Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda, the co-founders of the online money gaming platform WinZO over allegations of money laundering. They were arrested in Bengaluru on Wednesday, November 26, after appearing for questioning at the ED’s zonal office and were presented before a local court and sent to one-day custody. The court is expected to pass a detailed order after their next appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrest follows the ED’s raids on WinZO, Gamezkraft, and their promoters under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) between November 18-22. The raids led to the freezing of \u20b9505 crore worth<\/a> of bonds, fixed deposits and mutual funds belonging to WinZO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operator faces allegations of running real-money games (RMGs) from India, targeting countries like Brazil, the US and Germany, and using undisclosed algorithms to deceive customers into thinking they were playing against human opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the ED, WinZO allegedly restricted users from withdrawing their money from wallets. The directorate alleged that after India’s new gaming ban \u20b943 crore is still held by the company.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t\t\tSee also:<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSee also:<\/span> Mumbai Police arrest two businessmen over alleged online gambling scam<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arrest follows the ED’s raids on WinZO, Gamezkraft and promoters under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2395,"featured_media":26706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"India's Enforcement Directorate has arrested WinZO co-founders Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda in Bengaluru on money laundering allegations, following raids under the PMLA. The arrests stem from accusations of operating real-money games targeting international markets from India, using deceptive algorithms, and restricting user withdrawals, with \u20b9505 crore in assets already frozen. This action highlights escalating regulatory scrutiny on online gaming operators in India, particularly concerning cross-border operations and financial compliance.","focusai_entities":"WinZO, Gamezkraft, Saumya Singh Rathore, Paavan Nanda, Enforcement Directorate (ED)","focusai_location":"India, Bengaluru, Brazil, US, Germany","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.97), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.75), product_ux (0.8), tech_data (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.98), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"PMLA Enforcement Scope","query":"What are the broader implications of the Enforcement Directorate's application of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to online gaming operators for cross-border real-money gaming (RMG) activities and asset management?"},{"label":"Operational Risk Assessment","query":"How will allegations of deceptive algorithms and restricted withdrawals influence future B2C licensing requirements and governance frameworks for iGaming operators, particularly concerning player protection and platform transparency?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,16334],"tags":[29,1897,225],"class_list":["post-777035246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","category-south-asia-news","tag-casino","tag-igaming","tag-legislation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777035246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777035246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777035246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777035250,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777035246\/revisions\/777035250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777035246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777035246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777035246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}