New Delhi: The ED has revealed that the annual lottery turnover of lottery king Santiago Martin, a CPM ally and one of the party’s major funders, is Rs 15,000 crore. This was discovered during an investigation initiated by the Enforcement Directorate in 2014. The ED has so far seized Martin’s assets worth Rs 1,000 crore, of which Rs 622 crore was seized by the ED’s Kochi unit and Rs 409 crore by the Kolkata unit, the press release said.
This wealth was made from lottery sales. Martin committed the fraud by using friends and relatives as lottery distributors. He gave prizes for unsold tickets. As per the law, these tickets were not sold to the public or returned to the state governments. Later, he used the winning tickets to purchase goods. The ED has also found lottery tickets containing winning tickets that were not used or sold as per the rules.
Despite an annual turnover of over Rs 15,000 crore, Martin’s company was showing only a meager profit. Most of Martin’s lottery business was from the sale of Sikkim state lottery tickets. 90% of the sales were in West Bengal. Several cases have been registered against Martin and the company by different agencies. The Meghalaya government has also filed a complaint alleging a loss of Rs 1,500 crore due to Martin’s fraud.
