ED raids at multiple places uncover crores in lottery fraud case

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) continued its search operation in the lottery fraud case on Friday following the raids conducted on Thursday at multiple places.

Multiple ED teams searched the office of a lottery company in the Lake Market area and another place since morning.

According to ED sources, several crores of rupees have been recovered from the flat of a person in a multi-storied residence on Prince Ghulam Mohammad Shah Road in the Lake Market area. After the money was found, ED officers brought a money- counting machine.

On Thursday, ED officials conducted a search operation at Lake Market in Kolkata and Michael Nagar in North 24-Parganas. It was alleged that crores of rupees were cheated through the lottery. Recently a special team of ED arrived from Delhi to investigate the case. During the raid, it was found that at Michael Nagar the company has a lottery printing office and warehouse.

A search was conducted there, on Friday, on the other hand, a residence in Lake Market was also searched.

According to ED sources, several crores of cash were recovered during the search of the residence on Friday.

Earlier, in October 2023, Income Tax officials raided the printing office and warehouse of a lottery company at Madhyamgram in North 24-Parganas to find links to illegal lottery money. At that time there were allegations of financial fraud. It was alleged that the organisation cheated crores of prize money by depriving the real prize recipients. Financial irregularities were also alleged.

According to ED sources, how far this fraud net is spread, and who else is involved in this cycle, is being investigated.

Apart from Kolkata, raids were also conducted in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad in Haryana and Ludhiana in Punjab in connection with the same case.