Councillor on run after police bust lottery racket

CHENNAI: Police busted a fake lottery racket by arresting four people from Tiruttani, 55km south of Chennai, on Monday. Police are on the lookout for a DMK councillor who has been running two shops in the locality for more than a decade.

 

Police seized 1 lakh in cash and 50,000 lottery tickets of Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh. They also recovered several printouts of the lottery results downloaded from the internet. The racket was being run from a bangle shop, a stationery shop and two offices of a real estate company in Tiruttani. The investigators suspect that local police had information about the racket sometime ago, but did not take action.

 

Acting on a tip-off, teams led by assistant superintendent of police S Vijayakumar of Tiruttani sub-division raided four places on Monday and arrested Mahesh (33), Dhandapani (59), Kumar (32) and Saminathan (42), all residents of the locality.

 

"During inquiries, the accused confirmed that two shops were maintained by a DMK councillor of Tiruttani municipality. Police teams have fanned out to various places to nab the councillor," assistant SP S Vijayakumar told TOI.

 

"The racketeers have been getting lottery tickets through a network which brought them down from other states," said a police officer."A bangle shop, a stationery shop and two other offices served as a front for the racketeers. They would get the results through email, take printouts of the results and circulate in the neighbourhood."

 

The accused, who was in the illegal business for the past one decade, had been receiving the banned lottery ticket parcels through couriers. "After arresting the absconded councilor and few other persons behind the racket, we can unearth more hidden theories of the scam," the officer added. Tiruttani police have registered a case and sent the four accused to prison.