The Enforcement Directorate is specifically looking into “political angle and Middle-East angle” of the multi-crore lottery scam that was busted last week with the Income Tax Department and the Central Board of Direct Taxes in a joint operation unearthing crores of rupees stashed away in many locations in Kolkata.
According to sources, the fugitive kingpin of the lottery racket Santiago Martin whose laptop and harddiscs were seized by the officials had information and phone numbers from the Middle-East.
After intense interrogation of Nagrajan one of the henchmen of Martin the officials have found that “a large amount of money has been sent to Sharjah and Dubai via hawala.” The Middle-East angle was further bolstered when the officials contacted the numbers they recovered during the raids, sources said, adding a large part of the money earned through fake lottery business went to various political parties in Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Bihar and most probably the North East.
Incidentally, the money hoarding centres that had developed in Kolkata were all concentrated around the southern parts of the city.
Besides, there was a similarity between how things happened in Tamil Nadu and how they were given shape in Bengal. In both the States, the fake lottery emerged after the official lottery was abolished, sources said. In Tamil Nadu, it all started post 2003 and in Bengal about four years ago when the official super lotto was abolished.
The modus operandi was simple. “lakhs of lottery tickets were issued but no game was played on those tickets thereby the entire money went into the pockets of the organisers. On the other hand, fake games were played on a few unsold tickets and the prize money thus won went back to the organisers like Nagrajan,” sources said after his interrogation.
After interrogating Nagarajan the officials are “almost confirmed that the total worth of the scam is at least Rs4,000 crore and much of that money has been siphoned off to Middle-East as also some key politicians in the past 2-3 years’ time.” The ED was likely to seek a CBI investigation into the scam, sources said.
A particular political party in Bengal was also under the scanner in connection with the lottery racket, sources said, adding Martin who was currently at large had briefly attended a wedding party thrown by a leader of the said outfit at a private garden on the Eastern Metropolitan bypass in Kolkata.
It was being probed whether some part of the money was used in Bengal elections or for that matter went for election purposes in Bihar, sources said, adding “there is a small possibility of that happening.”
It was around the same time that the State Government allegedly ignored alerts sent by the Centre on the lottery scam. Why the alert was ignored was being probed, sources said, adding whether the political party and its leaders had benefited from the racket was being looked into.