India’s ED targets Parimatch’s payment chain in a third raid wave this year

On 2 September, India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched 12 locations across Maharashtra, Delhi and its suburbs, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, this time focusing not on the bookmaker itself but on the payment and compliance layer around it. For high-risk PSPs, the message is simple: once investigators start following the money, the “just infrastructure” defence gets very thin very quickly.

1. According to The Hindu, the ED says payment companies cashed out betting proceeds through cash-management agents, while chartered accountants and company secretaries helped move money abroad through illegal remittances and sham foreign direct investment structures routed via payment gateways in the name of Parimatch.
2. The case originated from a Mumbai cyber police complaint against parimatch.com. The platform is accused of deceiving users through online betting, and investigators put its annual turnover at more than ₹3000 crore (around 30 billion rupees, roughly $360 million).
3. This is the third wave in the same case over the year. On 12 August 2025, the ED searched 17 locations in eight cities — Mumbai, Delhi, Noida, Jaipur, Surat, Madurai, Kanpur, and Hyderabad — and froze ₹110 crore (about 1.1 billion rupees, roughly $13 million). It also seized 1200 bank cards used as mule instruments for deposit collection.
4. On 26 May 2026, investigators searched another 17 locations across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, Daman, and Uttar Pradesh. They seized movable property worth ₹1.56 crore, including ₹1.2 crore in cash, and froze a further ₹3.8 crore in bank accounts. At that point, total assets frozen in the case had reached ₹112 crore (around 1.12 billion rupees, roughly $13.5 million).
5. The earlier investigative record described a layered flow: user deposits were routed through drop accounts and shell-company accounts, correspondent banking networks, and retail outlets; in Tamil Nadu, cash was handed to hawala operators who topped up overseas virtual wallets; some funds were converted into USDT through mule crypto accounts; and UPI transfers were disguised as e-commerce refunds, supplier payments, and chargebacks.

The useful detail for PSPs is where the ED has moved its attention: away from the merchant alone and toward the intermediaries that physically move, document, and dress up the flow of funds. In practice, that means payment companies, cash agents, accountants, and company secretaries are no longer background actors in these cases; they are part of the case file.