Lottery retailer accused of stealing $5.7M lottery jackpot from small group 

Police have charged a Toronto convenience store owner with fraud in connection with a $5.7 million 'insider' lottery prize win.

Hafiz Zulqarnain Malik, 60, of Mississauga, Ont., is charged with two counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of theft over $5,000. He is to appear in court Wednesday.

The Ontario Provincial Police said the lottery ticket actually belonged to four Toronto residents, whom police refused to identify.

The ticket, worth $5,750,256, was purchased in June, 2004, and allegedly claimed by Mr. Malik in January, 2005. The OPP alleges the retailer stole the ticket after he was asked to validate it by the buyers.

"Simply put, a group of consumers entrusted a man with the validation of their lottery ticket, something that thousands of Ontarians do as part of playing the lottery games every week," said OPP Chief Superintendent Bob Goodall.

Detective-Inspector Paul Beesley said Mr. Malik owned a small convenience store in Toronto that is no longer in business.

The OPP said it restrained or seized $5-million in assets belonging to Mr. Malik, including his home, bank account, investment account and three vehicles.

The legitimate winners "are very happy and they have been co-operating completely with the police investigation," said Det.-Insp. Beesley, who spoke to them Tuesday.

The province's lottery system has been embroiled in controversy since last year, when the CBC's the fifth estate aired a story on Bob Edmonds, an 82-year-old who was cheated out of his lottery winnings by a retailer. Mr. Edmonds has since died. The story also alleged that lottery retailers were winning many more prizes than could be accounted for statistically by sheer luck.