Velocity Gaming CS:GO players banned from FACEIT for cheating, players claim it’s a false ban

Four CS:GO professional players from an Indian organization named Velocity Gaming recently got banned from a popular third-party matchmaking website called FACEIT. The community was caught entirely off guard after the news broke out. These players have been well-known figures for a long time, so nobody has made any snap judgments about this incident till now.

Hacking in CS:GO is an ancient practice for some regular players who want to get their hands dirty. But things get wayward when a professional player does the same. Since Valve's anti-cheat software is not strong enough to detect these hacks, it gives players an unfair advantage.

Earlier, some pro players have been caught and punished numerous times for cheating in between tournaments or even in their live streams. The sad part is that some are still cheating without punishment.

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VLT CS:GO players banned from FACEIT for cheating

VLT CS:GO players getting banned on FACEIT

The Indian CS:GO community hasn't dealt with a hacker like Forsaken in a long time. He gained notoriety for the usage of cheating software in a match of eXTREMESLAND ZOWIE Asia CS:GO 2018, which was later discovered by the tournament admins, and Optic India was disbanded immediately. However, this time, it's not as big as that incident, but it caused a stir in the community considering VLT's popularity in the space.

Four players from VLT Gaming, namely Bodhisattwa "The_Guru" Pandey, Nairit "L0sttt_" Bannerjee, Tamojit "Logan0fff-" Ghosal, and Muhammad "Syahhftw" Shyarul Daneal Bin Arif got banned from FACEIT. Dipayan "MaChOleleR" Das and Keven "KevinR" Ross Russel are players who haven't met the same fate. L0stt_ and Logan0fff- have been banned for only two years (the ban expires on August 25, 2025), while The_Guru and Syahhftw- received a prohibition indefinitely. However, they are allowed to play on the official servers of the game since FACEIT uses a hardcore anti-cheat, which is way superior to Valve's anti-cheat.

Bodhisattwa "The_Guru" Pandey commenting on the false allegations (Image via Facebook)

However, Bodhisattwa "The_Guru" Pandey, one of the banned players, has claimed via a Facebook comment that it's a false ban. He further said they have already approached the FACEIT authorities regarding this issue and await their verdict. He added that they were playing from a cafe, not their PC. This indicates that, since it's a public cafe, there is a possibility that some hack software used by a third person caused this unfortunate event.

VLT had signed four Indian and two international stars from the CS:GO scene on July 4, 2023, and was set to participate in the Skyesports Masters 2023. But the rosters' performance wasn't up to the mark. As a result of their underwhelming performance at the Skyesports Masters Regular season, they failed to qualify for the main event. In light of their performance, Velocity Gaming released their lineup on August 18. After the incident surfaced online, Sportskeeda contacted VLT owner Manoj "Sentinel" Kasyap. In the players' defense, he said:

"Team played under Sky admins supervision and we also had 1 guy from VLT watching them play the games . We also had an anti-cheat installed on all pcs and no other program on them."

The organization's owner is confident that their ex-players can't pursue any unfair means.

Other players from the community sincerely hope that the professional players get unbanned quickly and get on the scene as soon as possible. But if the ban is legit, we might see another downfall of the Indian CS:GO scene in 2023.