How a web of deceit undid online gaming unicorn Gameskraft

The gaming firm has accused its former CFO of siphoning off over ₹250 crore over five years

- Varun Sood & Nehal Chaliawala

The unraveling at Gameskraft Technologies is bringing up comparisons with the Satyam saga: concentrated power, falsified documents, and weak checks and balances.

The Bengaluru-based gaming firm, once valued at over ₹17,000 crore, has accused its former chief financial officer (CFO) Ramesh Prabhu of siphoning off more than ₹250 crore over five years.

The allegations come amid a churn of independent directors, questions over the role of its auditor, and the government's recent ban on realmoney gaming.

Between 2021 and 2022, four independent directors resigned from the company’s board within months of joining. One quit within a month. This includes Rajesh Lohia and Umesh Kumar Ram. The two had took office on 8 March 2021 and were joined by another individual just seven months later in October.

“There have been activities which have been carried out by the promoters and their associates, team and others because of which I have no say, and hence I would like to tender my resignation with immediate effect,” Lohia and Ram wrote in separate, but identical, resignation letters to Gamekraft’s board of directors.

A third director, Nitin Kumar, resigned on 12 December 2021, just 33 days after joining the board.

On 23 December 2021, a fourth director, Abhishek Upadhyay, joined the board. Upadhyay, a 27-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, quit the board eight months later in August 2022.

The four former directors did not respond to requests for comment.

The allegations come amid the govt's ban on real-money gaming.

Queries to Gameskraft co-founders also did not elicit a response.