CHENNAI: The investigation wing of the I-T department on Tuesday started searches on at least 70 premises belonging to businessman Santiago Martin, known by the moniker ‘Lottery King’. Though a resident of Coimbatore, Martin operates primarily in Kerala and north-eastern states, where lottery business is still permitted. He had suffered a setback when Tamil Nadu banned sale of lotteries in 2003.

I-T officials said searches were being conducted on 22 premises in Coimbatore, 10 in Chennai, 18 in Kolkata, five in Mumbai, three in Delhi, and two each in Hyderabad, Guwahati, Siliguri, Gangtok, Ranchi and Ludhiana. “We started the searches around 12.30pm. Premises belonging to his family members are also being searched. Our officials were keeping a watch on the movements of Martin, his son, daughter and other family members for some time now,” said an I-T official.

I-T sleuths took Martin for questioning from Kolkata airport when he reached there from a north-eastern state on Tuesday. He was on his way to Chennai.

While Martin’s primary activity was lottery marketing and sale, he was also into real estate business in a big way, said the official. He said the department had specific information about tax evasion committed by Martin and his family members. “As of now, we have seized Rs40 lakh cash from one of his premises. There are more seizures, but it would take some time to collate information trickling in from various places,” said the official.

The ED had attached many of his properties worth Rs122 crore in Tamil Nadu in connection with a money laundering case.

