Did Mondal, daughter ‘win’ more than one lottery, probe sleuths

KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing alleged links between a multicrore cattle smuggling racket and lottery winnings by Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal, suspects that the Birbhum strongman may have tried to route the proceeds of the crime through lottery prizes more than once, according to officials.

The federal investigating agency recently gathered that Mondal won the first prize of a Nagaland-based lottery on December 7 last year. He was declared to have won ₹1 crore against a ticket priced at ₹6, according to an investigator.

Investigations later revealed that two years earlier, in 2019, around ₹10 lakh was deposited in Mondal’s account under the name of a lottery winning. The agency also found that ₹51 lakh was deposited in two parts in the account of Mondal’s daughter Sukanya in same year, the officer said, asking not to be named.

“Mondal tried to regularise the proceeds from cattle smuggling through some lottery prize money. Investigation is going on to find out whether and how he and his daughter won lottery prizes more than once,” said another CBI official on condition of anonymity.

Last week, the central agency questioned a dealer, a sub-dealer and a retailer of the Nagalandbased lottery company in Bolpur town of Birbhum district. Sheikh Munna, the retailer who sold the prize-winning ticket as per the company’s records told CBI he did not sell it to Mondal.

“I sell tickets in local villages. I can’t remember who bought it but it was certainly not Anubrata Mondal,” Sheikh Munna told reporters in Birbhum last Friday while leaving CBI’s camp office.

When the lottery company published a newspaper advertisement in January this year with Mondal’s photograph, saying that he had won the first prize, he contradicted the claim in his interactions with local media.

Mondal was arrested by CBI on August 11 in connection with the cattle smuggling probe. He is presently in judicial custody. The Enforcement Directorate has also questioned his daughter Sukanya at least three times in Delhi.