2 gaming firm owners held for Rs 320 cr GST evasion - The Times of India
Meerut: Directorate general of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Meerut Zone, has arrested two owners of online gaming companies for allegedly evading Rs 320 crore in GST, officials said on Wednesday.Authorities said the accused collected around Rs 1,200 crore from players through their online gaming platforms but failed to deposit the applicable tax. The firms are also accused of laundering black money and illegally deducting funds from users' accounts.Special public prosecutor Lakshay Kumar said the DGGI had been monitoring several gaming firms for the past three months. One of the accused, Rajan Joshi, who operated from Delhi, allegedly collected Rs 442 crore, while Ravi Singh of Faridabad earned nearly Rs 760 crore through online gaming platforms.
As per GST norms, a tax liability of about Rs 320 crore arose from these transactions.Both accused were arrested from Noida and produced before the court of special chief judicial magistrate Durgesh Nandini in Meerut on Wednesday, which remanded them to judicial custody.Officials said investigations revealed that several companies were masquerading as IT service providers or e-commerce operators while actually facilitating online money gaming.
These firms reportedly paid GST at 18% on arbitrarily declared commissions instead of the mandated 28% on the full face value—the total amount deposited by players—causing significant revenue loss to the government exchequer.Special public prosecutor Lakshay Kumar said the probe also uncovered two more firms—Progressfin Payment Technologies Pvt Ltd and Spacehigh Tech Solution Pvt Ltd—which together routed over Rs 442 crore while under-reporting turnovers.
Their directors are accused of paying just Rs 1.88 crore in GST against an estimated liability of Rs 123 crore by falsifying filings.Search operations at multiple locations, including premises linked to SRS Live Technologies Pvt Ltd, led to the detection of an escrow account holding Rs 45 crore and transactions involving 46 suspicious merchants, many of which were found to be non-existent on physical verification across Delhi-NCR.Investigators also flagged Envirowheels Technologies Pvt Ltd, which received over Rs 340 crore from online gamers despite being registered only in October 2024. The firm allegedly paid just Rs 26.31 lakh in GST at 18% against an actual liability exceeding Rs 206 crore at 28% on total receipts of Rs 739 crore. Its directors were found to be untraceable, while evidence suggested Ravi Singh was the main controller and beneficiary of the operations.Further investigation into the broader network of shell companies and financial transactions is ongoing, officials said.