Chennai, Nov 16: Defamed Lottery king Santiago Martin has been caught with hefty amount of unaccounted cash reportedly ill gotten, by the ED sleuths on Saturday.
The Enforcement Directorate has recovered Rs 8.8 crore from the Chennai office of Santiago Martin. During ED searches on Thursday in a money laundering case against him and other associates for illegal gains of more than Rs 900 crore made in distribution and sale of lotteries, the cash was seized from Martin’s possession.
The illegally amassed cash was recovered from Chennai and Coimbatore houses, associated with Martin.
The cash is suspected to be collected form Faridabad, Ludhiana and Kolkata from illegal distribution and sale of lottery tickets. Martin and his Future Gaming and Hotel Services (P) Ltd are accused of committing fraud in distribution of Sikkim state lotteries.
ED had earlier carried out searches on Martin and associates in May last year when it had seized assets worth over Rs 457 crore, including Rs 158 crore in fixed deposits and mutual funds, and Rs 299 crore worth of properties.
Martin on records, who is India's biggest political donor having contributed Rs 1,368 crore through electoral bonds to all parties including DMK. Based on it, the ED had registered a fresh case against him under the PMLA, despite a number of pleas by the lottery king were on his favor.
With the appeal of the ED in the Madras High Court, the High Court Bench validated ED's case under PMLA while also asking state authorities to revive the corruption case.
