India's Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at 20 premises across five cities on October 13, widening a money-laundering investigation into online betting platforms accused of defrauding users and funneling the proceeds overseas. The raids in Mumbai, Pune, Mehsana, Surat and Hyderabad were carried out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and center on two platforms, All Panel Exchange and MGM91, which investigators say lured complainants into depositing funds before cutting off access to their money.
Three Channels, One Destination
The ED's case rests on an allegation that proceeds moved abroad through three distinct mechanisms. The first involved inflated trade invoices, a longstanding method for disguising illicit transfers as legitimate commercial payments. The second relied on cash withdrawals from mule accounts opened under the names of Agricultural Produce Market Committee units - agricultural trade bodies whose banking activity would ordinarily attract little scrutiny. The third, and the one drawing the most attention, involved conversion into cryptocurrency, a step that investigators say helped obscure the destination of funds once they left the formal banking system.
Crypto's role here is not novel in financial-crime investigations. Digital assets can move across borders quickly and, depending on the exchange and jurisdiction involved, with fewer of the identity checks that govern traditional wire transfers. For authorities tracing money tied to unlicensed betting operations, that combination of speed and reduced friction makes cryptocurrency a recurring feature in laundering schemes, even as blockchain's traceability also gives investigators a trail to follow after the fact.
A Payments Platform at the Center
According to the ED, intermediary accounts channeled funds toward a Pune-based company founded by Ram U. Ramdhani, who was arrested in earlier searches and remains in judicial custody. That company, Edsom Fintech, built and ran a payment platform called iPaisa. Investigators allege the platform onboarded more than 200 purported shell entities, which acted as fronts for merchants tied to betting, gaming and cyberfraud operations and their agents. If accurate, this points to a structural vulnerability familiar to payments regulators globally: fintech onboarding processes that fail to verify the true nature of a merchant's business can become a laundering conduit, regardless of the platform's original intent.
The ED also alleges that individuals based in Dubai directed some platform operators, and that certain cooperative banks supplied the infrastructure used to collect and layer funds before they moved further along the chain. Cooperative banks have periodically drawn regulatory attention in India for weaker compliance controls compared with scheduled commercial banks, making them an attractive point of entry for actors seeking to move money with less oversight.
What This Signals for Payments and Betting Oversight
India's regulatory position on online betting remains fragmented, with most forms of real-money gaming existing in a legal gray zone or operating from offshore jurisdictions beyond direct domestic licensing. That gap creates conditions in which unregulated platforms can promise payouts, collect deposits, and disappear - leaving law enforcement to reconstruct the money trail after harm has already occurred, as this case illustrates.
For payment service providers and fintech operators, the investigation underlines the compliance burden attached to merchant onboarding. Verifying beneficial ownership, flagging shell-entity patterns, and monitoring transaction behavior are not optional safeguards; they are the mechanisms that prevent legitimate payment rails from being repurposed for fraud. For consumers, the case is a reminder that platforms offering betting or trading opportunities outside recognized regulatory frameworks carry risks that extend beyond the odds of winning or losing - including the possibility that deposited funds may not be recoverable at all.
- Searches covered 20 premises in Mumbai, Pune, Mehsana, Surat and Hyderabad under the PMLA
- Two underlying cases involve the platforms All Panel Exchange and MGM91
- Three alleged laundering routes: inflated trade invoices, mule accounts linked to APMC units, and cryptocurrency conversion
- iPaisa, operated by Edsom Fintech, allegedly onboarded over 200 shell entities as merchants
- Investigators have frozen multiple linked bank accounts and seized documents and digital devices
The ED's investigation is ongoing, and no findings have been judicially confirmed at this stage. What the searches do confirm is the growing complexity of tracing illicit finance across banking, fintech and crypto rails simultaneously - a challenge regulators in India and elsewhere are still building the tools to meet.