At the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) held in October last year, The Head and Tale, in its Money & Machines newsletter, had flagged an unverified but persistent rumour circulating on the conference floor: investigating agencies were quietly walking through stalls of fintech companies, scrutinising businesses behind the booths.

The sixth edition of GFF, widely seen as a fintech mela, was taking place at a time when scrutiny around online gaming and its links with fintech infrastructure was intensifying. The Parliament had just passed the legislation imposing a comprehensive ban on real money gaming (RMG) on August 21, 2025.

Therefore, questions around links between online gaming platforms and parts of the fintech ecosystem had already been building. An investigative report by The Head and Tale after the passing of the legislation had also highlighted payment infrastructure as a critical link in how money moved through a shadow gaming ecosystem that had already become deeply entrenched.

Against that backdrop, rumours of investigating agencies quietly walking conference floors of the fintech event did not seem entirely implausible. And it would not be long before newly launched fintech startups including some endorsed by high profile celebrities such as actors Hrithik Roshan, Shraddha Kapoor and Anushka Sharma, and cricketer Virat Kohli that had installed prominent and elaborate booths at the GFF also found themselves under the scanner of investigative agencies.

To be sure, even before the formal ban on RMG, in July last year, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India had started cracked down on gaming platform Probo for allegedly operating as an illegal betting and gambling app and froze assets worth Rs 284.5 crore. Later in December, Probo, which is backed by marquee venture capital firms including Peak XV Partners and Elevation Capital, attached another Rs 117.41 crore in assets.

After the formal ban on the RMG, the ED raids became frequent not just upon the gaming startups but on fintech companies closely linked with them.

So soon after the ban, gaming startups including the heavily venture capital backed ones such as Dream11 and WinZo came under the scrutiny of the ED. While the ED in January this year charged Winzo and its promoters for allegedly rigging real money games using bots, the investigations are ongoing on Dream11.

Meanwhile, the fintech sector got its first major shock when in February the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) unearthed a Rs 5,000 crore illegal online gaming-fintech web in Hyderabad with Wegofin, the startup which was backed by actress Shraddha Kapoor and one of the startups with a prominent booth at the GFF, at the centre of it.

The fintech industry was in for a bigger shock later in February when the DGGI Hyderabad arrested Rishi Gupta, MD & CEO of listed company Fino Payments Bank. The Head and Tale exclusively reported that Gupta's arrest was connected to the DGGI investigation into Wegofin. Gupta’s arrest not only shocked the industry but also stirred fears of wider regulatory and investigative action.

The fears were not unfounded as the investigative agencies did not stop at that and more fintechs were pulled up. For instance, in April, RUGR Fintech, a venture backed company with Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador; Blume Ventures-backed IppoPay Technologies; and the Y-Combinator and Info Edge-backed Decentro came under the scanner of the Hyderabad unit of DGGI.

At this point, the investigative agencies appear to be relentless with the ED freezing assets worth over Rs 526 crore of another gaming firm Gameskraft Technologies earlier this month after arresting its three co-founders. And just last week, The Head and Tale reported that the ED has issued a detailed statement alleging that Pay10 Services, among the early recipients of a payment aggregator licence, and its associates were part of a large-scale money laundering network.

The Head and Tale has been at the heart of covering these stories, breaking some of these developments while actively tracking widening regulatory and investigative action across the gaming and fintech sectors. Because we believe these developments matter, we have put together a graphic capturing the chronology of key events since last year.