lottery baron Santiago Martin’s wife leema Rose was arrested by the Tamil Nadu Police and has been remanded to judicial custody on Saturday. Rose was held for submitting fake and forged documents in connection with seizure of unaccounted money worth `7.2 crore from Nagarajan, a close associate of Santiago Martin and another `5 million from Murthy, Martin’s business partner.
The arrest of Rose is a sequel to her submission to the court that the money was the proceedings from the sale of a property owned by Martin. The investigation by the police proved that her disclosures were wrong and a case has been registered against her under Sections 468 and 471 of IPC. If proved she can be sentenced to life imprisonment, according to Sudha Ramalingam, senior lawyer of Madras High Court.
Martin is close to M Karunanidhi, the DMK chief. Karunanidhi wrote the script of Ilaignan, produced by Martin, who paid the former a record fee for the same. Martin is out on bail in case of land grabbing.