Fino Bank CEO Rishi Gupta
Hyderabad: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) on Monday, March 9, arrested Rishi Gupta, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Fino Payments Bank, in connection with an online betting fraud case, alleging that he facilitated the onboarding of fictitious programme managers and helped operate a network of 36 shell companies to route illegal transactions.
Gupta was produced before a local court, where the DGGI placed its findings on record and sought his custody. The court granted two-day remand to the agency.
According to the DGGI’s submissions, as reported by the Times of India, three companies were enrolled as resellers or programme managers under Fino Payments Bank. All three were found to be non-functional. Transactions worth Rs 3,000 crore linked to online betting platforms were routed through these entities.
In addition, 36 other shell companies were onboarded as payment aggregators. The agency alleged that this was done deliberately to inflate turnover and fee-based income, bypassing mandatory inspections, audits and risk monitoring protocols.
Investigators zeroed in on two entities, Oceanique Web Solutions Private Limited and Webwin IT Hub Solutions Private Limited, which had direct links to gaming websites but were found to be non-operational.
Three firms – PS Rao Digital Solutions (OPC) Private Limited, Billexpress Solutions Private Limited and Powerfin Technology Private Limited – were identified as fictitious programme managers or resellers.
“These programme managers were used to onboard 36 shell entities through Fino Payments Bank under its role as a payment aggregator,” the DGGI told the court.
The agency has also flagged eight other entities functioning as resellers and sought further information on them, suspecting their involvement in the broader betting scam and large-scale tax evasion.
The gaming platforms facilitated by these dummy companies did not issue tax invoices, allowing the syndicate to mask operations, suppress actual turnover and avoid declaring taxable supplies in GST returns.
The DGGI informed the court that the taxable value of services routed through the three programme managers to dummy or non-functional companies between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2025, was approximately Rs 28 crore.The probe is part of a wider crackdown on online betting platforms that have been under the scanner for alleged GST evasion and financial irregularities.
This post was last modified on March 10, 2026 3:19 pm