Current Affairs

News
Court orders fraud case against Kerala lottery dealer

Thiruvananthapuram: A local court on Saturday directed the police to register cases against lottery tycoon Santiago Martin and his associate John Kennedy on the charge of distributing fake tickets of Bhutan lotteries. Acting on a private complaint, the First Class Chief Judicial Magistrate A M Basheer asked the Fort police to register cases against the 2 owners of Monica distributors and Megha distributors respectively, the agencies that allegedly sold fake tickets in the Fort area in the city. The complaint by one Ishaq of Manikyavilakam in the city said he had bought 10 Bhutan lottery tickets from Fort area 2 months back. The tickets had secret code and the seal of the Bhutan government, which were later found to be fake. The draw was to have been held the next day after he purchased the ticket, but the results were not published and there was no information on whether the draw was held, he submitted in his complaint. After examining the tickets, the CJM ordered that cases be registered against the owners of Monica distributors and its subsidiary agency Megha. Santiago Martin has been in the centre of controversy in Kerala for the last few months with the Opposition parties alleging that he had siphoned off huge amounts from Kerala through sale of lottery tickets from other states by flouting rules and regulations of the Lottery Act. While the CPI(M)-led LDF government maintained that it was for the Centre to take action against other-state lotteries, the charge of the Opposition Congress-led UDF was that the state was not using its powers to check the 'lottery mafia.'

                                                                                                               
Back
Created by SaasVaap Techies pvt ltd