The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday seized Rs 8.8 crore from the corporate office of Chennai-based ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin.
The officers provided this information. Martin was one of the biggest donors to political parties.
It had donated more than Rs 1,300 crore under the now-cancelled electoral bond scheme. The raids, which started on Thursday, continued for the second day in many states.
The ED official said around Rs 8.8 crore, mostly Rs 500 notes, was seized from Martin’s corporate office on Friday. However, information regarding where the office is located is not available.
This action comes after the Madras High Court recently gave permission to the ED to conduct a detailed investigation against Martin.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu Police had decided to close the case against Martin and some others and the lower court had accepted this plea of the police.
Officials said at least 20 premises linked to Martin, his son-in-law Aadhav Arjun and associates in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad in Haryana, Ludhiana in Punjab and Kolkata in West Bengal are being searched as part of the “sweeping” crackdown. .
The ED has taken cognizance of multiple police FIRs to initiate fresh action against Martin and his business network for lottery “fraud” and “illegal” sale of lotteries. The agency had conducted raids in this case earlier also.
The federal agency had last year attached assets worth about Rs 457 crore linked to Martin in a case involving alleged loss of over Rs 900 crore to the Sikkim government from fraudulent sales of government lotteries in Kerala.
Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. was the main distributor of Sikkim Lotteries. The ED has been taking action against Martin, known as the ‘Lottery King’ in Tamil Nadu, since 2019.
Recently, Martin came into limelight when it was revealed through Election Commission data that his company (Future Gaming) had donated to political parties by purchasing electoral bonds worth more than Rs 1,300 crore between 2019 and 2024. .
The post ED tightened its grip on the person who gave maximum donations to political parties; Rs 8.8 crore seized… appeared first on .