CBI probes lottery winnings by Anubrata Mondal, cash laundering angle

Heavyweight Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief, Anubrata Mondal has now come below the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over profitable Rs 1 crore in a lottery.

On Saturday (November 5), he was interrogated by the central company for about 1.5 hours at a particular jail in Asansol. Mondal was quizzed a few ₹1 crore lottery that he received in January this 12 months and the style by which the funds have been utilised.

A CBI officer knowledgeable, “We went to the prison to question Mr Anubrata about the lottery he won. We are tallying his responses with the statement given by the lottery ticket seller with whom we spoke on Friday (November 4).”

The #CBI probing the lottery angle within the multi- crore cattle smuggling rip-off in #WestBengal, has been intrigued by frequent lottery awards received by Trinamool Congress’s Birbhum district president #AnubrataMondal and his daughter #SukanyaMondal throughout a specific time interval. pic.twitter.com/6ViOAdvCV7

— IANS (@ians_india) November 8, 2022

According to the central company, Mondal may need laundered black cash, procured by way of cattle smuggling actions, through lottery attracts. The ticket vendor, recognized as Munna Sheikh, denied promoting lottery tickets to the TMC chief.

It is alleged that Mondal bought the lottery ticket, which fetched him ₹1 crore, by way of his bodyguard. As per a report in Hindustan Times Bangla, the CBI has now discovered details about 3 further lottery ticket winnings by the Mondol household.

Funds acquired from two lottery winnings, totalling ₹51 lakhs, have been transferred to the checking account of Anubrata Mondol’s daughter Sukanya Mondol. Similarly, ₹10 lakhs received from the lottery was transferred to the TMC chief’s account in 2019.

The CBI had additionally quizzed Munna Sheikh, the ticket vendor from Birbhum, which fetched Anubrata ₹1 crore. He claimed no reminiscence of promoting tickets to the TMC chief. Sheikh stated that he bought the tickets in bulk from the ‘Rahul Lottery Agency’, which was not directly issued by the Nagaland State Lottery.

1.2 Lottery has turn into an avenue for changing black cash to white cash. A variety of TMC leaders received prize value Rs. 1 cr.

— Dilip Ghosh (@DilipGhoshBJP) November 6, 2022

BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has now hit out on the Trinamool Congress and its chief Anubrata Mondal. “Every scam in Paschim Banga is inter-connected. The lottery scam came to light in 2016 from a CAG report. The govt paid no heed despite knowing everything,” he tweeted.

“The people of the govt are involved with the 40-45 lotteries that run in the state…Lottery has become an avenue for converting black money to white money. A number of TMC leaders won prize worth Rs. 1 cr,” he had alleged.

Seems like publishing the photographs of TMC leaders as winners on the bulletins has price Dear Lottery “dearly” !!!

That’s why the identification of the winners is lacking from the newest bulletins:-@dir_ed pic.twitter.com/wxCIDtw5wC

— Suvendu Adhikari • শুভেন্দু অধিকারী (@SuvenduWB) November 8, 2022

Similar allegations have been additionally levelled towards Anubrata Mondal by BJP chief Suvendu Adhikari. He identified how the lottery firm stopped posting footage of the winners after a number of TMC leaders together with Mondal and MLA Vivek Gupta’s spouse have been declared winners.