Calcutta, Sept. 24: Calcutta police and the income tax department today seized an estimated Rs 50 crore in cash that had been kept in bags in the Calcutta and Siliguri offices and houses of agents of a Chennai-based lottery company.

Police and income tax department sources said they suspected that the money collected through the sale of lottery tickets was being funnelled to Saudi Arabia and South East Asia through hawala channels. They suspect the money collected from across the country was being stored in Bengal.

Today, seven premises in Calcutta and one in Siliguri were raided. The sources said the company belonged to Chennai-based "lottery king" M. Nagarajan. The sources said he could be in south Calcutta.

The raids were carried out on the basis of a tip-off from a central intelligence agency that had been scanning some people involved in the lottery business. According to the tip-off, the lottery business was also being carried out in states where it is banned.

"The raids were carried out at seven premises, including the houses and offices of lottery agents in Behala, New Alipore, Hazra and Sarat Bose Road. We have seized a huge amount of cash and the process of counting is still on," a senior official of the investigation wing of the income tax department in Calcutta said.

"As of now, we have counted Rs 50 lakh, but this is the tip of the iceberg. We will continue counting through the night and tomorrow. We need to find out why such a huge amount of unaccounted for cash had been hoarded," he said, adding that currency-counting machines were being used.

The preliminary investigation has revealed that Nagarajan procured lottery tickets from Hyderabad and Delhi and sent them to Bengal and Sikkim. He is believed to be an associate of Santiago Martin, a Tamil Nadu-based businessman who runs a Rs 7,000-crore lottery business, a source said.

In 2007, the CPM's mouthpiece in Kerala, Deshabhimani, had allegedly accepted Rs 2 crore from Martin. In the face of political pressure, the party had to return the money, which had allegedly been given in the form of bonds of Rs 50 lakh each.

Chennai police had arrested Nagarajan in 2012 for alleged involvement in the lottery business in states where it is banned.

Unlike in states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the lottery business is not banned in Bengal. Sources in central intelligence agencies said what caught their attention was that the money collected from the sale of lottery tickets was being brought to Bengal.

The sources said Nagarajan's lottery business was spread across Bengal, Punjab, Sikkim, Karnataka and Kerala.

The central intelligence agency that tipped off the police and the income tax department believes that the money seized today was supposed to be transferred out of Calcutta by this weekend.

"We need to find out who is the end user of this money," an income tax official said.