New Delhi: The Election Commission's list of entities that purchased electoral bonds to make political donations on Thursday, days after the State Bank of India furnished the details after the Supreme Court's censure, mentioned the name of Santiago Martin, commonly known as 'Lottery King'.
The fact that his firm named Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited made highest amount of donations to political parties raised many eyebrows and spilled beans on the work of his firm.
This is not for the first time that Martin's name surfaced in scams. in 2021, ex-Congress chief of Tamil Nadu Alagiri alleged that Martin made 83 per cent of donations to the BJP in the run-up to the Assembly elections while the net donation to political parties was Rs 245.7 crores.
His allegations gave credence as a report by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) also revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received nearly 90% of all corporate donations worth ₹680.49 crore that five national parties together gathered in 2022-23, Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited is in the eye of the storm for donating ₹1368 crore between 2019 and 2024.
The Enforcement Directorate has been probing the company for alleged violation of PMLA law since 2019. They had carried out raids in Coimbatore and Chennai in May 2023.
The needle of suspicion
The name of Santiago first surfaced on April 30, 2019, when Income Tax Department simultaneously raided his properties in 70 locations across the country, including 22 locations in his home town Coimbatore.
The four-day search operation led to the seizure of Rs 5.8 crore in cash and Rs 24 crore worth gold and diamonds. Earlier also the self-styled 'lottery king' has drawn the suspension of authorities’ tracked his fast growing business that began in Tamil Nadu before expanding to multiple states. Martin, who along with his wife was engaged in dubious dealings, kept close ties with political leaders in Tamil Nadu.
Adding to the intriguing tale, another probe, which targeted Martin, was related to murder investigation over one of Martin’s long-term employees, who was found dead a few hours after he was grilled by the I-T sleuths.
The website of Santiago Martin, who is said to be running a charitable trust claims he started his career as a labourer in Myanmar's Yangon. He came back to India and started a lottery business in Tamil Nadu in 1988. He saw a sudden change of fortune which helped her expanding the business in Karnataka and Kerala before moving into the northeast where he began his business by handling government lottery schemes. His business was taken offshore in Bhutan and Nepal.
The wily lottery businessman made foray into construction, real estate, textiles and hospitality. "He is also the President of All India Federation of Lottery Trade and Allied Industries – an organisation engaged for uplifting and infusing credibility to the lottery trade in India. Under his stewardship, his enterprise, Future Gaming Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. became a member of the prestigious World Lottery Association and is expanding into the field of Online Gaming & Casinos and Sports Betting," the website said.
Sources said the Enforcement Directorate's probe is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation charge sheet that alleged the company sold lotteries from Sikkim government in Kerala.
According to the agency, Martin and his companies caused a ₹910 crore loss to Sikkim "on account of inflating the prize-winning tickets claim from April 2009 to august 2010."
The rise and fall of the 'Lottery King’
The meteoric rise of a lottery ticket seller, who made a humble beginning but fast built his fortune, raised everyone's eyebrows. Having begun as a labourer at Yangon in Myanmar, he returned to India to start his business in Tamil Nadu in 1988 before gradually expanding to Karnataka and Kerala. In 2003, he had to take his business outside Tamil Nadu following the state governemnt's banning of lotteries.
Soon his ambition made him shift his focus to the north-east, where he started handling government lottery schemes. Not the man to rest on his already achieved financial goals, Martin began to expand internationally, with business operations in Bhutan and Nepal.
By the time, he became a monopoly player for lotteries in the north-east, with Martin Lottery Agencies Limited amassing net worth of over Rs 7,000 crore.
He owned music channel SS Music and had produced Ilaignan, which was DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi's 75th movie as a scriptwriter.
Under glare of law enforcement agencies for long time
In 2007, Martin’s business in Karnataka came under the police glare for allegedly running an illegal lottery racket in the state with the help of police officials. With his business extending to Kerala, the state police also launched probe into his lottery trade.
In 2011, the CBI registered more than 30 cases against Martin and his close aides for cheating the Sikkim government. According to the chargesheet filed by the CBI, Martin had cheated the Sikkim government to the tune of Rs 4,500 crore by allegedly selling lottery tickets on behalf of the Sikkim government in Kerala from 2005, but not paying the full amount of the sales to them.
This ‘lottery scandal’ kicked up quite a storm in Kerala, after which the United Democratic Front government banned the online sale of Sikkim lotteries in the state for two years. After its probe in 2014, the CBI claimed that the scam enabled ticket buyers to convert their black money into white. The CBI case against Martin is still pending before the court, with the Lottery King out on bail.
Political links
Martin, who hobnobbed with influential politicians, also knows the who’s who of India’s political circles. His hiring of Congress leader and senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi in 2010 to fight his case in court for the scam that came to light in 2007 was also marked as an example of his close ties with a bigwig of Indian politics.
The incident, however, brought Congress the ire of Kerala’s Left Democratic Front government that slammed the national party for its alleged support of a tainted businessman resulting in Singhvi withdrawal from the case the same year.
Six years later, the Congress objected to the appearnce of MK Damodaran, a senior advocate who is close to sitting CM and CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan, as Martin’s legal counsel in a case filed by Enforcement Department.
It was also later discovered that Martin had donated Rs 2 crore to Deshabhimani, the CPI(M) mouthpiece. In Tamil Nadu, Martin was known as close to senior DMK leaders. In fact, Tamil Nadu's then Advocate General PS Raman had appeared for Martin in Kerala High Court, which was objected by the then Kerala Chief Minister.
After ex-AIADMK chief and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa came to power in 2011, her governemnt ordered crackdown on DMK leaders and sympathisers. Martin were also booked for fraud and land grabbing cases along with some DMK leaders. He was arrested and jailed in Vellore in 2012.
Martin went for an image makeover mode and made contributions to the state exchequer in times of disasters, especially during the Cyclone Gaja which heavily destroyed the delta districts of Tamil Nadu in November 2018. He donated Rs 5 crore towards relief measures. His other significant contributions were during the Cyclone Vardah (2016) and the Chennai floods (2015). Martin also claimed to be one of the highest tax-payers in the country.
A murder suspect
Soon after an Income Tax search on his properties in 2019, the mysterius death of Martin’s long-term staff members, Palanisami, raised suspicion.
The accounting staff member at Martin’s Homeopathy College in Coimbatore for over 20 years, Palanisami was found dead in a pond in Karamadai just hours after he was grilled by I-T officials on May 3 that year. The police also registered an FIR for unnatural death and begun investigation. The matter gained credence after Palanisami’s son Rohin Kumar filed a petition in the Madras High Court, seeking a CBCID probe into his father’s mysterious death.
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