There was yet another act of chicanery involved. The scheme ostensibly envisaged a total of twenty-four lakh tickets, and this information was printed on the back of the tickets. In reality, the organizers printed only 2,40,000 tickets. However, when the draw for the winning tickets was done, the numbers of all twenty-four lakh tickets were included whereas only 2,40,000 tickets had been sold. This meant that chances of the balance 21,60,000 unsold/ unprinted tickets remained with the organizers, which was 90 per cent! Further, if any one of the printed tickets were to win a prize, it would only be of Rs 50 each, as had been decided beforehand by the organizers.
Thus, assuming that all printed tickets were sold, they would yield Rs 1,20,00,000, whereas only Rs 12,000 was to be paid by way of prizes. In this manner, a single draw yielded a profit of Rs 1,19,80,000 to the organizers, which was shared amongst the selling agents, the organizing company and the society. The figures were mind-boggling, and with hundreds of lotteries under operation with multiple daily draws in quite a few of them, the Crime Branch was sitting on the tip of an enormous iceberg. There was a lottery scam running across the country, cheating millions of people of their hard-earned money, and the Crime Branch had to do everything it could to stem the rot.

I had completed an eventful three-year stint as the deputy commissioner of police (DCP), south district, in August 1992 and was desperate for a change of assignment. District jobs can get stressful and tedious after a while, and I was a tad weary and longing for a change, having carried the yoke for over three years. I requested the then commissioner of police (CP), M.B. Kaushal, to transfer me out, and he very kindly posted me as DCP, Crime Branch of the Delhi Police, an assignment after my heart.
To my good fortune, the multicrore lottery scam came my way within just over a month of my joining, and it turned out to be one of the most satisfying investigations of my career.

To be continued.....