Kolkata: During the ongoing searches, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday raided the house of ‘Lottery King’ or Coimbatore-based businessman Santiago Martin. From his residence, an amount of Rs 9 Crore was seized. The raids come as a part of an illegal action against the business tycoon due to his alleged involvement in a money laundering case. It is worth noting that Santiago is the single biggest donor to political parties with over Rs 1,300 crore in electoral bonds.The search and seizure operations commenced on Thursday in multiple states like Chennai, Coimbatore, Faridabad, Ludhiana, Kolkata etc. These raids have come 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.

Around 20 locations linked to Martin, his son-in-law Aadhav Arjun and associates in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Ludhiana in Punjab, Kolkata in West Bengal and Faridabad in Haryana were searched.The ED took cognisance of a clutch of police FIRs against Martin and his business network for lottery "fraud" and "illegal" sale of lottery. Martin had searched him earlier as well. 2023 Raids at Santiago's Residence Last year, the federal agency attached assets worth approximately Rs 457 crore in connection with a case involving Martin, who is accused of causing a loss of over Rs 900 crore to the Sikkim government through the fraudulent sale of state lottery tickets in Kerala.Martin's company, Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., is the master distributor of Sikkim lotteries. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has been investigating Martin, known as the 'lottery king' in Tamil Nadu, since 2019.