Chennai. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday seized Rs 8.8 crore from the corporate office of Chennai-based ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin. Officials gave this information. Martin was one of the biggest donors to political parties. He had donated more than Rs 1,300 crore under the now canceled electoral bond scheme. The raids started on Thursday continued for the second day in several states.
ED official said that about Rs 8.8 crore was seized from Martin’s corporate office on Friday, most of which were Rs 500 notes. However, information about where the office is located is not available. This action has been taken after the Madras High Court recently allowed the ED to conduct a detailed investigation against Martin. Earlier, the Tamil Nadu Police had decided to close the case against Martin and some others and the lower court had accepted the police’s petition.
Officials said searches were being conducted as part of a “comprehensive” action at at least 20 premises linked to Martin, his son-in-law Adhav Arjun and associates in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad in Haryana, Ludhiana in Punjab and Kolkata in West Bengal. The ED has taken cognizance of several police FIRs to initiate fresh action against Martin and his business network for lottery “fraud” and “illegal” sale of lotteries. The agency had earlier conducted raids in this case as well.
The federal agency had last year attached assets worth about Rs 457 crore linked to Martin in a case related to alleged loss of over Rs 900 crore to the Sikkim government from fraudulent sale of government lotteries in Kerala. Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt Ltd was the main distributor of Sikkim Lottery. The ED has been taking action against Martin, known as the ‘lottery king’ in Tamil Nadu, since 2019. Recently, Martin came into the limelight when it was revealed through the 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.
