Illicit lottery tickets are being sold in large numbers in Bagodar in Giridih district of Jharkhand. The area has become a hub for selling illegal lotteries from Sikkim and Nagaland and is suspected to be run by Santiago Martin.
Several daily wage earners are being lured in with possibilities of winning millions in reward. The Lottery Ticket Syndicate of Sikkim and Nagaland is from where lottery tickets are purchased on a large scale from Asansol in Bengal. Additionally, duplicate lottery tickets are frequently bought and sold.
The illegal lottery syndicate in Bagodar earns Rs 4 to 5 lakh on a daily basis through this operation with the number of people, believing that they can become millionaires through these lotteries, increasing day-by day.
Lottery buyers usually include daily wage workers, taxi drivers, porters and street vendors. While the public are spending their hard-earned money on these fake lotteries, the people running these syndicates are making a huge profit.
The authorities started taking legal action from February 2022 against anyone who sold illegal lottery tickets. Cash and lottery tickets were widely seized as a result of this action. Additionally, members of the syndicate were apprehended with a few more under investigation.
The Sikkim and Nagaland lottery cases also point towards the recent investigations related to lottery king Santiago Martin. Martin is currently being investigated for alleged tax violation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
ED recently froze assets worth Rs 457 crore from Martin’s residence and premises of his family members in Chennai. Rs. 157.7 crore were frozen from fixed deposits and mutual funds. Immovable property documents were also seized which valued those assets at Rs. 299.16 crore.
