Canadian Lottery Scam Revealed
The Ontario police and Ontario Lottery and Gaming are searching for the real winners of a lottery jackpot that was hit back in 2003.
The latest lottery scam was announced by the police who said that they had charged three members of an Ontarian family for conspiring to steal winnings that were not theirs.
It was revealed that a father and son won a lottery ticket as a prize for another ticket that they bought at a video outlet in St. Catharines just after Christmas in 2003.
However, the free ticket - which went on to win the jackpot - was never given to the pair.
The Chung family, owners of the store, decided instead to claim the prize for themselves and claimed to be the winners of the $12.5 million windfall.
Three of the family members - Jun Chul Chung (60), Kathleen (29) and Kenneth (28) Chung, were charged with fraud and released on bail.
In the meantime, authorities have frozen $10 million of their assets.
The family purchased luxury cars and homes with their money after the 'win'.
The scam was discovered through tracking technology used by Ontario Lottery and Gaming.
The search is now on for the true winners, and OLG is currently examining 87 claimants.
"We don't know the identity of the person who bought the ticket because, historically, lottery in Canada has been anonymous," said the chairman of OLG, Paul Godfrey.
"But if someone can come in and tell us everything we already know about the ticket, down to the last detail, there's a good chance we're looking at the rightful owner," he promised.
