Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday conducted fresh searches in multiple states against Chennai-based ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin, the single biggest donor to political parties with over Rs 1,300 crore in electoral bonds, as part of a money laundering investigation, official sources said.
The action comes after the Madras High Court recently allowed the ED to proceed against Martin as the Tamil Nadu Police had decided to close the predicate or primary FIR against him and a few others and a lower court accepted this police plea.
Sources 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 were being searched as part of a "comprehensive" action against his business empire.
A clutch of police FIRs have been taken into cognisance by the ED to initiate the latest action against Martin and his business network for lottery "fraud" and "illegal" sale of lottery.
The agency searched him earlier too.
The federal agency last year attached assets worth about Rs 457 crore in a case against Martin linked to an alleged loss of over Rs 900 crore to the Sikkim government by fraudulent sale of the state lottery in Kerala.
Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. is the master distributor of Sikkim lotteries and the ED has been investigating Martin, known as 'lottery king' in Tamil Nadu, since 2019.
Martin recently made news after it came to light through Election Commission data that his company (Future Gaming) was the largest purchaser of electoral bonds worth more than Rs 1,300 crore, between 2019 and 2024, meant for donations to political parties.
The Madras High Court last month allowed the ED case against Martin and his linked persons to go on as it set aside a lower court order which had accepted a closure report filed by the Chennai Police crime branch in a case related to the seizure of "unaccounted" Rs 7.2 crore from his Chennai home.
His other companies include Martin Builders Pvt. Ltd. and Daison Land and Development Pvt. Ltd. The ED had said earlier that these firms "acquired" immovable properties worth Rs 19.59 crore from the loans and advances given by Martin and his family members.