India’s Enforcement Directorate says a network behind All Panel Exchange and MGM91 used shell companies, mule accounts, inflated trade invoices and cryptocurrency to move alleged betting proceeds offshore.
India’s Enforcement Directorate has widened its money-laundering probe into online betting by searching 20 premises across Mumbai, Pune, Mehsana, Surat and Hyderabad, in a case the agency says links gambling proceeds to shell companies, mule bank accounts and cryptocurrency. According to the ED, the operation targeted a syndicate behind the online platforms All Panel Exchange and MGM91, both of which it says drew in users with promises of betting and gaming activity before blocking withdrawals.
The agency said the searches, carried out on 13 October under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, uncovered documents and electronic devices, and led to the freezing of bank accounts tied to people and entities under investigation. The ED says the alleged network used an in-house payment system called iPaisa, built by Pune-based Edsom Fintech, to bring more than 200 front firms into the payment flow and process money for betting, gaming and cyber-fraud operators.
Investigators allege the proceeds were moved through three main routes: trade payments disguised by inflated invoices, cash withdrawals from mule accounts opened under the cover of agricultural market committee units, and conversion into cryptoassets before the funds were pushed offshore. The crypto element is central to the case. In an earlier phase of the same inquiry, the ED said Edsom Fintech had used fabricated know-your-customer documents linked to a credit co-operative society to open a wallet on a cryptocurrency exchange and route nearly ₹800 crore.
The latest action also fits a broader pattern the agency says it has seen in illegal betting and cyber-fraud cases. Business Standard reported in July that the ED estimated India’s online betting ecosystem had generated about ₹43,000 crore over seven years in the Mahadev network investigation, while The Economic Times said the agency was separately examining syndicates that allegedly moved more than ₹2,000 crore abroad by masking the transfers as technology and artificial intelligence investments. The New Indian Express and The Times of India have also reported earlier raids on payment intermediaries linked to betting networks, underscoring how operators are said to rely on financial middlemen to obscure the trail.
The ED’s public statements suggest crypto remains attractive to fraud networks because it can be used at the final stage of laundering to move value across borders more quickly than traditional banking channels. The agency has previously traced similar routes in other cases, including probes into betting apps and digital-arrest scams, where money was layered through mule accounts, cashed out through informal channels and then converted into digital assets to obscure ownership and destination.
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