While ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin’s wife is with an alliance partner of BJP, his son is with the BJP and son-in-law with a DMK ally.
Santiago Martin
Santiago Martin had been staying out of the media glare for a while till he got a passing reference in the news after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched the premises of his son-in-law- Aadhav Arjun in Tamil Nadu on 9 March.
Five days later, Martin, — also known as Lottery King for the wrong reasons — was back in the news, surprising the country as the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds. His Coimbatore-based Future Gaming and Hotel Services made donations to the tune of ₹1,368 crore through electoral bonds.
According to the Election Commission of India’s revelation on 21 March, Martin’s firm donated funds to seven political parties from Tamil Nadu in the south to Sikkim in the northeast. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress was the major beneficiary, receiving ₹542 crore.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu came in next, redeeming electoral bonds to the tune of ₹503 crore. Martin did not disappoint the YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh. His contribution of ₹154 crore to the YSRCP surprised many since gaming has been banned in Andhra Pradesh.
The ruling and Opposition parties in Sikkim — Sikkim Krantikari Morcha and the Sikkim Democratic Front — became richer by ₹11 crores and ₹5 crores, respectively, thanks to Martin’s ‘generosity’.
The Lottery King did not disappoint the BJP. He purchased electoral bonds for ₹100 crore. The Opposition Congress received ₹50 crore.
Martin loosened the purse strings even as multiple agencies — the Income Tax department, ED, CBI, and the state police forces of Tamil Nadu and Kerala were probing cases against him. Martin is accused of causing a loss to the public exchequer by illegally selling lotteries and cheating.
His generous donations flew in the face of multiple agencies’ efforts to put him on the dock. “We have sufficient evidence to prove how ordinary people are being cheated by big-time lottery operators. We will soon pass the files to the Central Bureau of Investigation,” a senior I-T official had told Rediff in January 2001.
Still, years after the official had made the statement, Martin, apparently, has been running his show effectively and without major impediments.
Martin purchased electoral bonds through Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited between 21 October 2020 and 5 April 2023.
The Trinamool Congress received ₹542 crores through multiple sets of purchases: ₹1 crore on 27 October 2020; ₹30 crore on 7 July 2021; ₹46 crore on 5 October 2021; ₹60 crore on 6 January 2022; ₹25 crore on 6 July 2022; ₹90 crore on 6 October 2022; ₹10 crore on 9 December 2022; ₹20 crore on 24 January 2023; ₹15 crore on 25 January 2023; ₹60 crore on 11 April 2023; ₹63 crore on 6 July 2023; ₹62 crore on 5 October 2023; and another ₹60 crore on 9 January 2024.
Future Gaming Contributions
The firm donated ₹100 crore in two installments to the BJP: ₹50 crore on 5 October 2021, and ₹50 crore on 5 January 2022.
It contributed ₹503 crore to the DMK: ₹60 crore on 21 October 2020, ₹49 crore on 5 April 2021, ₹99 crore on 5 October 2021, ₹50 crore on 5 January 2022, ₹50 crore on 6 January 2022, ₹100 crore on 7 April 2022, ₹50 crore on 6 July 2022, ₹5 crore on 6 October 2022, and ₹40 crore on 5 April 2023.
The YSRCP got ₹154 crores from the Future Gaming and Hotel Services: ₹89 crore on 27 October 2020, ₹60 crore on 9 April 2021, and ₹5 crore on 6 October 2022. For the Congress, the purchase of ₹50 crore was made on 5 April 2023.
On 8 November 2023, bonds worth ₹5 crore were purchased benefitting the Sikkim Democratic Front. For the ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, purchases of ₹2 crore were made on 6 October 2022, ₹3 crore on 27 January 2023, ₹3 crore on 5 October, and ₹3 crore on 9 January 2024.
Surprisingly, Future Gaming’s total donations of ₹1,368 crore exceeded the company’s revenue and income. The company’s net profits from financial years 2019 to 2023 were reportedly around ₹215 crore.
Born in 1961 in the Andaman Islands, Martin spent half of his youth working as a wage labourer in Myanmar before settling in Coimbatore in the 1980s. Upon returning to India, he worked in a tea shop in Tatabad, a residential-cum-commercial area in Coimbatore, where his interest in lottery tickets grew. Eventually, Martin decided to set up a shop selling lottery tickets.
During this period, Martin introduced two-digit lottery tickets under the name “Dear Lottery.” The winning numbers were revealed through live telecasts facilitated by his company on television as well as online.
It was reported that in 2001, he sold approximately 12 million two-digit lottery tickets across the country and served as the sole distributor for lottery schemes in Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Martin allegedly had close ties with the DMK and expanded his business empire in the region. In 2000, he reportedly paid around ₹3,50,000 rupees to the Tamil Nadu government daily as sales tax, totalling around ₹12.6 crore annually.
“The story of his life is one that epitomises the success of a man who built from nothing, into an empire,” noted Martin Foundation, his charitable trust.
He is also the president of the All India Federation of Lottery Trade and Allied Industries, an organisation dedicated to improving and bringing ‘credibility’ to the lottery trade in India.
However, Martin’s venture in Tamil Nadu came to a halt in 2003 when the AIADMK government under J Jayalalithaa banned the sale of lottery tickets, including online sales.
Martin unsuccessfully moved the Supreme Court against the ban. The court ruled that the right to sell lottery tickets was neither a fundamental right nor a right under Article 301.
With no respite coming from the top court, Martin looked at the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Kerala to expand his business.
According to his website, he established a vast marketing network for lottery buyers and sellers across India, particularly in the south. He opened branches in Karnataka, Sikkim, West Bengal, Punjab, and Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, Martin had multiple run-ins with the law and was also under the scanner of multiple investigative agencies.
It was alleged that he bribed state government officials in Sikkim to ensure that prizes were announced for unsold tickets. This was against the rules as the unsold tickets should be returned to state government lottery departments, but agencies did not return them, which resulted in the agents winning millions of rupees.
In 2008, Martin made headlines in Kerala by donating ₹3.2 crore to the CPI(M) and its mouthpiece Desabhimani. The internal conflicts between VS Achuthanandan and current Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and protests by the Congress forced the Left party to return the money.
In 2006, three years after Tamil Nadu banned the sale of lotteries, the DMK won power. Though the DMK did not lift the ban, it was accused of clandestinely helping Martin.
On 14 January 2011, he invested ₹20 crore in a Tamil film, Ilaignan, an adaption of The Mother by Maxim Gorky. The then chief minister M Karunanidhi wrote the screenplay.
Four months later, the AIADMK returned to power. In August, the CBI registered 32 cases relating to the “lottery scandal” in Kerala, which involved massive fraud in the Sikkim lottery business since 2005.
In May 2012, Martin was arrested in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, and was charged with 14 cases of land grabbing, illegal lottery sales, and cheating in various parts of the state. He remained in jail for eight months before he was granted bail.
Meanwhile, Martin’s wife Leema Rose lodged a complaint against the DMK with the Coimbatore police, saying its cadres in Bengaluru, including Karunanidhi’s daughter Selvi, framed her husband in a fake lottery case.
The lottery scandal continued, and later, Martin’s wife was arrested in March 2013 for submitting fake documents related to ₹7.2 unaccounted cash. She got bail later.
On 4 February 2014, the CBI filed seven charge sheets against Martin.
The probe agency stated that while he did not cause any loss to the Kerala government, he and his accomplices defrauded the Sikkim government to the tune of over ₹4,500 crore. Out of the total ₹4,752 crore worth of lottery tickets sold in Kerala between 2008 and 2010, Martin’s firms had only paid ₹143 crore to the Sikkim government.
After the CBI’s charge sheet, Martin’s family debuted in politics. His wife Rose joined the Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK), a BJP ally. She was seen sharing a dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the campaign for the 2014 elections. Their son Charles Jose Martin joined the BJP in June 2015.
Martin’s son-in-law Aadhav Arjun joined with the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a constituent in the Congress-led INDIA bloc. Arjun was recently appointed the deputy general secretary of the VCK.
An article published in Tamil magazine Vikatan on 8 May 2019 alleged that DMK president MK Stalin had ₹500 crore financial dealings with Martin. Stalin denied the allegations termed them ‘fictitious’ and demanded ₹1.1 crore as compensation for damaging his reputation.
The I-T department found ₹50 crore in cash from Kolkata and Siliguri in West Bengal in September 2015. The department alleged that the cash was from a Ponzi lottery scheme run by a gang of five individuals, including Martin.
In July 2017, the GST regime came into existence, and lottery players had to pay taxes, with rates reaching as high as 28 percent in certain states. In a report by Live Mint, the then Kerala Finance TM Minister Thomas Isaac stated, “There have been rumours that Martin has been lobbying in the GST Council to make it a uniform tax. He almost succeeded but for stiff opposition from us.”
Two years later in May 2019, the I-T department searched 70 premises belonging to Martin across the country. Martin’s accountant T Palanisamy was interrogated for two days. The I-T officials seized ₹595 crore of unaccounted money in cash, payment receipts, gold, and diamonds from Martin’s properties across Tamil Nadu.
On 3 May, during the second day of investigation, Palanisamy was found dead in a pond near Karamadai on the outskirts of Coimbatore. The family alleged foul play in his death.
Meanwhile, the ED started probing money laundering cases against Martin. Between July 2019 and September 2023, as per media reports the ED carried out searches in Martin’s offices and seized around ₹1,178 crore.
Further, new trouble from Punjab hit Martin in August 2023 with a lottery distributor Arunjot Singh Sodhi, moved the Chandigarh high court, against an alleged ₹900-crore lottery scam.
In September 2023, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) sent letters to eight states where lotteries were being operated, informing them about alleged “frauds” and “irregularities” associated with Martin’s companies. The MHA advised these states to steer clear of any dealings with Martin and his lottery firms. The letter underscored the serious allegations against Martin and his companies.
Despite facing investigations and cases in the trial stage, Martin continued to expand his business empire. He now serves as a director in 114 companies in India.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
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