The city police on Wednesday arrested a person for allegedly operating a fake lottery racket in the state from New Delhi.
Sukhdev Kumar, 53, of Paschim Puri near Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi, was arrested at the New Delhi airport when he arrived from Colombo.
He was an accused in a case registered after 1.68 lakh fake single-digit Sikkim and Bhutan lottery tickets worth Rs 34 lakh were seized from Nedumbassery in January last year.
Pradeesh of Kathrikadavu and Sajeesh of Mattanchery were caught with the lottery tickets when they were attempting to transport it to Tamil Nadu.
Following this, Palarivattom police had registered a case and started investigation. A police team, comprising Circle Inspector Baiju Poulose, had produced Sukhdev before a magistrate court in New Delhi.
After receiving transit warrant, the police brought him to Kochi by train.
According to police officials, after the arrest of four persons in the case, including S Ananda Vadivel, main distributor of fake lotteries in Tamil Nadu, they got information about Sukhdev.
“Following this, we were tracking his mobile phone. Last week, we traced him to Colombo. The cyber cell got information that he would come to New Delhi. So, a police team went to New Delhi and arrested him,” police officials said.
Police said Sukhdev used to frequent Bangladesh and Nepal. They suspected he ran fake lottery business in foreign countries also.
Sukhdev had visited 28 countries over the last several years, the police said.
Ananda Vadivel is the rival of Santiago Martin, another lottery king in South India.
Police officials believe that fake lotteries were distributed by Vadivel as Martin has distribution rights of Sikkim lotteries in other states.