India’s Enforcement Directorate searched 20 premises across five cities this week. One of the three routes it says moved the money out of the country was crypto.
The searches targeted a syndicate the ED says ran two online betting and gaming platforms, All Panel Exchange and MGM91, luring users to deposit funds before cutting off withdrawals. Investigators allege the proceeds were layered through shell firms and mule bank accounts before being converted into cryptocurrency and moved offshore.
The Enforcement Directorate said in a press release dated October 17, 2026, that it conducted the searches on October 13 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, at locations in Mumbai, Pune, Mehsana, Surat, and Hyderabad.
What the ED Alleges
According to the ED, the probe stems from two predicate offenses tied to All Panel Exchange (allpanelexch.com) and MGM91, both online betting and gaming platforms that investigators say induced complainants to deposit funds before cutting off withdrawals. Funds collected from victims were allegedly routed into bank accounts controlled by Ram U. Ramdhani, a Pune-based individual who founded Edsom Fintech Pvt Ltd.
The ED alleges Edsom developed and operated an in-house payment intermediary platform called “iPaisa,” which it used to onboard more than 200 shell or front entities—internally referred to as “merchants”—on behalf of online gaming, betting, and cyber fraud operators and their agents, described as “Channel Partners/Carry & Forward Agents.”
Investigators say funds from victims were routed through a network of mule bank accounts, and that a significant number of people operating the betting and gaming platforms were being directed from Dubai. The ED also alleges the syndicate was aided by certain cooperative banks whose infrastructure was used to collect and layer the illicit proceeds.
The Crypto Route
The ED identified three principal methods it says the syndicate used to move proceeds of crime out of the country: remittances disguised as trade transactions through over-invoicing, cash withdrawals from mule accounts opened under the guise of APMC units, and conversion of funds into cryptocurrency to siphon proceeds outside India.
The crypto route is not new to this investigation. In an earlier round of the same probe, reported in July 2026, the ED alleged that Edsom Fintech had routed nearly ₹800 crore by using fabricated KYC documents of a credit cooperative society to open a wallet on a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Friday’s press release did not specify a revised total for funds moved through crypto in this round but named the method again as one of three active laundering channels under investigation.
During the October 13 searches, the ED said it recovered incriminating documents and digital devices and ordered multiple bank accounts linked to the entities and individuals under investigation frozen. Ramdhani, who the ED had earlier arrested following searches in Pune, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, remains in judicial custody.
A Recurring Laundering Channel
This is not an isolated use of crypto conversion by Indian fraud syndicates under ED scrutiny. In 2022, the agency froze cryptocurrency worth roughly $1.5 million linked to the gaming app “E-Nuggets,” after tracing funds moved through WazirX and Binance wallets. The agency later said it was investigating at least 10 crypto exchanges over alleged links to roughly ₹1,000 crore laundered via instant loan app scams and issued WazirX a show-cause notice over crypto transactions worth ₹2,790.74 crore under foreign exchange law.
In a 2022 written reply to the Lok Sabha, the government said the ED was investigating seven separate cases involving cryptocurrency-based money laundering, with proceeds of crime worth ₹135 crore attached at the time.
A ₹2.95 Crore Digital Arrest Case Linked to 396 Complaints
The same week, the ED’s Ahmedabad Zonal Office filed a separate prosecution complaint in a ₹2.95 crore “digital arrest” scam, in which fraudsters posing as CBI and police officers coerced two elderly victims into transferring ₹1.15 crore and ₹1.80 crore into mule accounts.
Investigators said the funds were layered through more than 50 mule accounts, withdrawn in cash across India and Dubai, moved through informal Angadiya courier channels, and partly converted into cryptocurrency to obscure the trail. A notable twist: ₹30 lakh of the proceeds was routed onto a third-party credit card and used to pay insurance premiums, a method the ED said effectively integrated the stolen funds back into the legitimate financial system.
The ED has provisionally attached ₹38 lakh in assets in that case and said it adds to a series of digital-arrest investigations in which proceeds were allegedly converted into crypto for cross-border movement, including a ₹7 crore case in Jalandhar involving commissions paid through a Binance account and a January 2025 Chennai case where investigators seized Bitcoin and Tether.
Those case is also connected to a massive 396 pending cybercrime complaints on the national I4C portal, showing they were used repeatedly for illicit activity across India. The ED stated that this pattern is typical of larger digital-arrest operations that rely on layers of mule accounts and informal value-transfer systems to break the audit trail.
The pattern in those cases also mirrors what investigators now allege in the All Panel Exchange and MGM91 probe: fraud proceeds collected from victims are layered through shell entities and mule accounts, then converted into crypto as one of the final steps before funds leave Indian jurisdiction.
Crypto’s appeal for this purpose, based on the ED’s public statements across these cases, appears to lie in the relative speed and reduced visibility it offers compared to traditional banking channels for the final offshore leg of a laundering chain.
Disclaimer: This article reports on publicly available information released by the Directorate of Enforcement, Government of India. All allegations described herein are those made by investigative authorities and have not been adjudicated by a court of law. Entities and individuals named are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
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