A CBI team on Friday visited a lottery shop in Bolpur of Birbhum district in connection with an investigation into the Rs 1 crore lottery prize reportedly won by Trinamool Congress’s district president Anubrata Mondal last year.
The team talked to the staff and asked them to submit required documents at the agency office. Later, Sheikh Ainul, owner of Rahul Lottery Agency, visited the CBI camp office with documents after he was summoned there. Mondal reportedly won the lottery prize worth Rs 1 crore in January last year. He was arrested by the CBI in August in connection with its probe into a cattle smuggling case.
On Wednesday, the CBI had summoned Bapi Gangopadhyay, another lottery ticket trader in Bolpur, to the Nizam Palace office for questioning.
CBI says that a firm called Lucky Lottery bought the prize-winning ticket from Rahul Lottery Agency. Later, a lottery seller from Nahina village bought that ticket from Lucky Lottery, it claimed.
CBI wants to know if Anubrata went to Nahina village to buy the ticket or whether someone else won the money. Investigating agencies are trying to find out whether black money from cow smuggling is being laundered through lottery prizes, sources said.
“There are high chances that the black money earned from cattle smuggling was used in the lottery business. We are investigating the matter. We are talking to several people,” a CBI official said. Mondal’s daughter Sukanya was questioned by an Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the money trail in the cattle smuggling case, at its Delhi headquarters on Wednesday.
