The Enforcement Directorate logo.
Credit: PTI Photo
Bengaluru: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said that it has frozen around Rs 192 crore following raids on the office premises of the accounting firm of gaming platform WinZO.
The Central agency said that the searches were conducted under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, by the Bengaluru Zonal office on December 30. M/s WinZO Pvt. Ltd. is into the business of online real money gaming services through its app – WinZO, the ED said.
“During the search, Proceeds of Crime (POC) possessed by M/s. ZO Games Pvt Ltd. (fully owned Indian subsidiary of M/s. Winzo Pvt. Ltd.) worth around Rs 192 crores, has been frozen in the form of bank balances, FDRs, and mutual funds under section 17 (1A) of the PMLA, 2002,” it said in a statement.
“Earlier, ED had conducted search and seizure operations at the office premises of M/s Winzo Pvt. Ltd., and the residential premises of its Director on 18/11/2025. The evidence unearthed during the search and subsequent investigation revealed that the company was engaged in criminal activities and unscrupulous practices i.e. customers were made to play with BOTs/AI/Algorithms/software (termed as PPP/EP/Persona) without being made aware of the fact that they are playing with BOTs/AI/Algorithms and not with humans in real money games. Winzo has also prevented/limited withdrawals of monies held by the customers in the wallets of M/s Winzo Pvt Ltd,” the added.
The Central probe agency also claimed that M/S Winzo Pvt Ltd generated POC in the form of ‘Rake Commission’ from the matches played by the BOTs with the real players on their Winzo App. In this manner, the company has made winnings of around Rs.177 Crore from the BOTs, for the period May’ 2024 to August’ 2025 and Rs. 557 Crore (approx.), for the period April 2022 to December 2023.
“Also, the company had users’ monies amounting to Rs 43 Crore, even after the ban of Real Money Games by the Union Government. So far, the investigation revealed that M/s. Winzo Pvt. Ltd., has generated POC, around Rs.802 Crore,” it said.
“Further, a part of the POC has been taken out of India to the USA and Singapore under the garb of overseas investments. The funds worth USD 54 Million have been parked in their bank account in the USA (bank account held in the name of ‘WINZO US Inc.”), which is a shell company, since all the operations and day-to-day business activities, operation of bank accounts are done from India.”