ED attaches lottery king Martin’s assets worth Rs 119.6 crore

The attached assets consist of 61 flats, 82 vacant plots and 6 plots with buildings located in Coimbatore district, a release from the ED said.

The company which came under the scrutiny of ED is Future Gaming Solutions (presently Future Gaming and Hotel Services and formerly Martin Lottery Agencies) on the basis of charge sheet filed by the anti-corruption branch (ACB) of the Kochi, Kerala unit of CBI.

Santiago Martin and others were charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy among them to violate the provisions of Lottery Regulation Act, 1998, and to obtain wrongful gain by cheating Sikkim Government by an agreement contrary to the provisions of Act with officials of Sikkim government. By this, his company could practically run the Sikkim State Lottery and avoid the remittance of face value of the lottery tickets to the government as sales proceeds.

Investigation by ED revealed that Martin and his associates made illegal gain to the extent of Rs 910.3 crores on account of inflating the prize-winning tickets claim for the period from April1 2009 to August 31, 2010.

Martin invested this illegally gained money from his lottery business in purchasing immovable properties in the name of 40 companies, which were used for laundering the proceeds of crime, the agency statement said. Earlier, ED had issued two provisional attachment orders attaching assets of worth Rs 138.5 Cr in this case.