ED seizes over 12 crore cash, FDs in raids against 'lottery king' Santiago Martin, his companies

New Delhi | The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized more than Rs 12 crore of "unexplained" cash and frozen fixed deposits worth Rs 6.42 crore during multi-state searches against Chennai-based 'lottery king' Santiago Martin and his associates.

Martin was in the news this year when the Election Commission (EC) declared his company as the single biggest donor to political parties with over Rs 1,300 crore in the now-scrapped electoral bonds.

The federal agency last week raided 22 premises spread across Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya and Punjab, including four lottery tickets printing presses in the case against Martin and his companies Future Gaming, Hotel Services Private Limited and some other associates.

The ED issued a statement on Monday saying its probe found that "90 per cent of the business of the company is in lottery tickets of Rs 6 face value, against which most of the prizes were below Rs 10,000, which is non-taxable".

"No proper record was maintained by the company regarding prize winners and, sold and unsold tickets," the ED said.

Lottery schemes were designed by the company in such a way that a "substantial" profit goes to the company and the organising state gets a "very small portion" of the revenue, it claimed.

The money laundering case of the ED stems from an FIR registered by the Meghalaya Police against the accused on a complaint filed by the state lottery department apart from some Kerala Police FIRs that were later taken over by the CBI.

The main allegations against the group are that they "illegally" captured the lottery market by not allowing others to operate, they sold "fake" lottery tickets, manipulated winning prizes and purchased big prize winning tickets against cash payment for converting black money into white leading to "huge loss" to the exchequer and general public, the ED said.

The agency said it seized "unexplained" cash of Rs 12.41 crore, digital devices and "incriminating" documents and froze fixed deposits of Rs 6.42 crore during the raids.

Record of huge investment in immovable properties at Coimbatore Chennai, Mumbai, Dubai and London have also been found. The accused have made huge investments in the share market too, the agency said.

A chargesheet has been filed by the ED in the Kerala Police case against Martin and his companies while attaching assets worth Rs 622 crore.

Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. was the master distributor of Sikkim lotteries and the ED has been investigating Martin, known as "lottery king" in Tamil Nadu, since 2019.