Bengaluru: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested online money gaming platform WinZO founders Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda on money laundering charges. According to officials, they were arrested in Bengaluru following their questioning at the zonal office of the financial regulator. Rathore and Nanda, Directors of WinZO Games Pvt Ltd were produced before the judge, and were sent to one-day custody by the court.
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The court directed ED to produce them at 11.30 a.m. on Thursday for detailed arguments, on remand application filed by the Department, according to officials. ED acted after searches conducted by ED recently. According to ED, funds to the tune of Rs 43 crore of gamers were ‘held’ by the company. According to the regulator, this money should be refunded to players after India banned real-money gaming.
In a statement, WinZO has said that "Our focus remains on protecting our users and ensuring a secure, trustworthy experience", and it remains fully compliant with all applicable laws. The ED had earlier raided the premises of WinZO and Gamezkraft, another company offering online gaming, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). ED conducted search operations under PMLA, 2002, at various locations across Bengaluru and Gurugram.
An official said that the raids included the office of Nirdesa Networks Pvt. Ltd. (NNPL), Gameskraft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (GTPL), and residential premises of its Directors and other accused/suspected persons over large-scale fraud, manipulated game outcomes and other allegations, according to an official statement released on Monday by the ED. An official said that eight bank accounts having a balance of Rs 18.57 crore have been frozen. He said that the raids were conducted from November 18 to November 22.
“During the search operations, incriminating devices like mobile phones, laptops are seized,” he said. Incriminating devices like mobile phones, laptops have been seized from the premises of Directors/Founders of the company, and voluminous data backup has been taken from the premises of the Gameskraft company Technologies Pvt Limited. Even after the ban on Real Money Games by the Union government, an amount of more than Rs 30 crore is still held by the company in its escrow accounts without refunding to the gamers and customers.
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