The Enforcement Directorate seized around ₹3 crore from multiple locations in Calcutta in connection with an alleged multi-crore rupees pan-India lottery scam.

Multiple teams of the central agency carried out day-long searches and seizures at two locations on Kavi Bharati Sarani in the Lake Gardens area and Prince Ghulam Mohammad Shah Road in connection with the probe.

The raids were conducted at the residence and office of Santiago Martin, the biggest donor to political parties with over ₹1,300 crore in electoral bonds, which were later scrapped.

The raids connected to “lottery king” Santiago Martin’s places followed a Madras High Court order to proceed with investigations against Martin. Tamil Nadu had earlier closed a criminal case against him and a trial court had accepted the closure
report.

There are multiple complaints of lottery fraud and sale of illegal lotteries by the businesses run by Martin, the central agency officials said.

The ED officials said simultaneous raids were being conducted in the same case across parts of south India, Bengal and Sikkim.

The team has raided a few locations in North 24-Parganas’ Michael Nagar, where a place to print lottery tickets was raided on Thursday.

The raids continued till late on Friday.

The raids were the outcome of a court order to probe the lottery business, which is suspected to have been used for money laundering and cheating people.

The ED officials entered the apartments at Lake Gardens and Lake Market on Friday morning accompanied by central forces. Cash counting machines were brought a few hours later to count the currency notes found in the locations.