Arup Chanda By

KOLKATA: Santiago Martin is a model for school dropouts, ambitious to get rich quick and also wield political clout. The secret behind Martin amassing a huge fortune is a cleverly planned trick which took a lot of time for probe agencies to detect.

He invented the “two digit” lottery conducted several times a day and caught the imagination of people particularly the poor who also dream of a windfall. Tickets were sold in lakhs netting in hundreds of crores as revenue in a single day in several states, including those in the eastern and north eastern region. After the Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate raids last month in several of Martin’s official premises in the city and adjoining areas and in Siliguri, the sleuths recovered not only hundreds of crores in cash stashed but discovered his modus operandi to cheat people and several state governments.

The officials said the day the lottery was to be drawn, several series of unsold tickets remain with the agents. According to rules the numbers of those series are supposed to be informed to the respective state governments which conduct the lotteries so that during the draw those numbers are excluded.

But Martin’s gang would not inform the state government’s and through their contacts in some state government lottery directorates ensure that such unsold tickets won some prizes. The agents would then claim the prize money and give a part of it to Martin in cash. This caucus over the last few years had earned several crores of rupees from this racket.

Moreover, during raids in Siliguri sleuths found a printing press where fake lottery tickets were printed. They discovered that lakhs of fake tickets of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Bhutan lotteries were printed there.

Martin’s main henchman S Nagarajan distributed those lakhs of tickets all over the eastern and north eastern region to the agents. Such tickets each amounting to Rs 10, sold in lakhs to the public, being fake there was no question of any prize money. With such fake tickets, the agents pooled in crores of rupees each day. They were also aware of the racket and as such given at least 25 percent commission. The sleuths discovered lakhs of such fake tickets called “Durga Puja Bumper- 2015” of Nagaland State Lotteries with each ticket priced at Rs 100.

Sources said that after the online lottery Lotto was banned a few years ago, Martin deputed Nagarajan to obtain agencies of lotteries of several state lotteries of governments in the north eastern region. He also obtained the contract of printing lottery tickets of those governments by allegedly bribing officers in the state finance departments. Not only cash but more than 10 premises mainly in residential areas in the city were rented to stock those fake tickets. The cash through hawala agents in the city and north Bengal was sent through Bangladesh to Pakistan and the Gulf countries to agents of Dawood Ibrahim.

From the hard discs of computers seized, the sleuths have also found financial details of Martin’s business in South India too and felt that now they could close in on all the persons involved in this huge racket.