The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Meerut Zone, has arrested two owners of online gaming companies for allegedly evading Rs 320 crore in GST by under-reporting revenues and routing funds through shell entities. Officials said the accused, Rajan Joshi of Delhi and Ravi Singh of Faridabad collected nearly Rs 1,200 crore from players through their gaming platforms but failed to pay the mandatory 28% GST on full face value. Instead, the firms falsely claimed to be IT service providers and paid just 18% GST on arbitrarily declared commissions.
According to special public prosecutor Lakshay Kumar, the DGGI had been tracking suspicious online gaming firms for three months. Joshi allegedly collected Rs 442 crore, while Singh earned Rs 760 crore through gaming operations. Both were arrested in Noida and produced before the special chief judicial magistrate in Meerut, who sent them to judicial custody. Investigators found that the companies laundered black money, misappropriated user funds, and channelled payments worth hundreds of crores through dummy entities with no genuine business activities.
The investigation widened after officials uncovered irregularities in multiple companies, including Progressfin Payment Technologies Pvt Ltd and Spacehigh Tech Solution Pvt Ltd, which together routed over Rs 442 crore while paying only Rs 1.88 crore in GST against a liability of Rs 123 crore. Searches also exposed suspicious transactions at SRS Live Technologies Pvt Ltd, where an escrow account holding Rs 45 crore and dealings with 46 non-existent merchants were detected. Another firm, Envirowheels Technologies Pvt Ltd, received Rs 340 crore from gamers despite being recently incorporated, but paid only Rs 26.31 lakh in GST instead of over Rs 206 crore. Officials say its directors are missing and evidence points to Ravi Singh as the prime controller. The DGGI continues to probe the wider network of shell companies involved in the alleged scam.
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