Chandigarh: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday claimed to have frozen fixed deposits and share documents worth Rs 284.5 crore, along with three bank lockers, during operations carried out on four premises of the promoters of a gaming company in Gurugram and Jind on Tuesday and Wednesday.The operations followed the registration of an FIR against Probo Media Technologies Private Limited and its promoters, Sachin Subhaschandra Gupta and Ashish Garg, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in connection with the company’s illegal gambling and betting activities across the country.Probo Media Technologies operates the app and website “Probo”, which provides a platform for online gaming.
The investigation revealed that the company received Rs 134.84 crore against the issue of preference shares from foreign entities based in Mauritius, Cayman Islands, and others.According to officials, multiple FIRs were registered under various sections of BNS, 2023, and the Public Gambling Act, 1867, against the company and its directors and promoters in Gurugram, Palwal and Agra in Uttar Pradesh. The complainants alleged that they were cheated and dishonestly presented with a scheme of earning money through simple “yes or no” questions, while the scheme promoted gambling.
The ED investigation revealed that the app and websites defraud their users by initially promoting a deceptive image of a legitimate skill-based platform, only to ultimately exploit them through a betting mechanism where success was governed entirely by chance and not by the user’s abilities or insights. The company claims its platform is ‘opinion trading’ and that knowledge or skill is required to play the game.
However, analysis of the games, according to ED, shows that all the games can be answered with ‘yes or no,’ and hence, there are only two possible outcomes, which makes it indistinguishable from gambling or betting.MSID:: 122346161 413 |
