The biggest electoral bond donour, Santiago Martin and his company Future Gaming and Hotel Services, seems to have a rather brazen way of doing business.
Months after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached the company’s properties in a money laundering case in July, 2022, Martin was back to work, doing what he had been doing all along -- floating multiple entities under the names of family members and close associates and appointing himself as a designated partner to manage the business.
During February and March, 2023, just seven months following the ED rap in July 2022, Martin was on a spree nominating himself as a partner in as many as 40 entities, all of which were housed just under four different addresses in Coimbatore, Chennai and Kolkata.
What’s even more baffling is that, some of these entities share the same address of the firms that ED had already named among the list of offenders. If all the firms based in Coimbatore have a common address -- No 54, Mettupalayam Road, GN Mill Post, Coimbatore, those in Chennai were housed under two different places -- 127, Triplicane High Road, Chennai, and New No 11, Old No 6, Mahalingam Street, Mahalingapuram, Nungambakkam, Chennai. Likewise, entities based in Kolkata shared the common address at 44/1 Rash Behari Avenue, Kolkata.
While he was appointed as a partner in Swanky Properties LLP in January, 2024, all his other appointments in entities like Abyudya Land Promoters, Sampathii Land Associates, Danapathi Promoters LLP, Freehold Construction, Chromatic Properties, Cheran Houses, Glorious Shelters, Affluent Dwellers, Best & Co Merchandisers, Ecola Constructions, Scintillating Township LLP and others were done between in 2023.
It may be noted that between March, 2016, and July, 2022, ED has attached Martin and his companies properties valued at Rs 825 crore. The most recent development in the PMLA case was on November 16, 2023, when ED arraigned 10 more Coimbatore-based firms owned by aides of Martin. Still, Martin continued to purchase electoral bonds despite his properties coming regularly under provisional attachment by ED and as the Election Commission data shows, he had donated well over Rs 1,394 crore over four years between 2019 and 2024.
He was also chargesheeted by the CBI for Future Gaming’s alleged involvement in retailing Sikkim government lotteries in Kerala, causing a loss of Rs 910 crore to the northern state between April, 2009 and August, 2010.