The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached movable assets worth Rs 409 crore of fraudsters Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt Ltd and its associates under the guise of lottery tickets. This company is the sole distributor of paper lotteries organized by the state of Sikkim and Nagaland, which runs the popular Dear Lottery there.

A top Enforcement Directorate official said that the amount that has been seized is in the form of balance in the bank accounts and mutual fund holdings of this company and its associates. According to the official, the ED had registered the case under the Money Laundering Act on the basis of an FIR registered by Kolkata Police under various sections of the IPC and Section 9 of the Lotteries Rules, 1998. It is alleged in this case that Future Gaming & Hotel Services Pvt Ltd is the sole distributor of the sole paper lottery run by the state of Sikkim and Nagaland which carries out this work with the help of its associates.

Rs 400 crore defrauded

In this case, it is alleged that this company and its associates hatched a criminal conspiracy and duped the state governments of about Rs 400 crore under the guise of sale of lottery tickets. It is also alleged that the lottery tickets which were not sold were also cheated by fraud. It is alleged that the company and its sub-distributors earned Rs 400 crore illegally by fraudulently from the year 2014 to the year 2017. It is also alleged that without the recommendation of the state government, these people ran many such schemes, which directly benefited the company and its distributor. During the investigation of this case, the Enforcement Directorate has identified crime assets worth almost the entire money and now it has been seized initially, the investigation of the case is going on.