Chennai:

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday seized Rs 8.8 crore in cash from the corporate office of Chennai-based ‘lottery king’ Santiago Martin, officials said.

Martin was the single biggest donor to political parties with over Rs 1,300 crore in now-scrapped electoral bonds.

The searches were carried out in multiple states as part of a money laundering investigation against the ‘lottery king’, officials said.

The action comes after the Madras High Court recently allowed the ED to proceed against Martin as the Tamil Nadu Police had decided to close the predicate or primary FIR against him and a few others and a lower court accepted this police plea.

Officials said at least 20 premises linked to Martin, his son-in-law Aadhav Arjun and associates in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Faridabad in Haryana, Ludhiana in Punjab and Kolkata in West Bengal were being searched as part of a “comprehensive” action against his business empire.

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