Convicted embezzler to forfeit Kansas Lottery prize
Paul W. Lyle learned that he won the grand prize in a Kansas Lottery second-chance drawing at his preliminary hearing 11 days ago. Trouble was: The former radio executive was facing a charge of felony theft for embezzling a reported $87,750 from his employer, American Media Investments, which owns three radio stations in Pittsburg, five in Joplin, Mo., and five more in Texas.
The supreme irony: Lyle, 63, the company's chief operating officer until the theft was discovered in May, confessed th ...
Oct 3, 2009, 11:36 am - - Lottery News forum
$25M lottery scam aimed at elderly busted
The feds on Tuesday dismantled an Israeli boiler-room operation that conned elderly U.S. victims out of $25 million by telling them they'd won a sweepstakes lottery.
A dozen members of the international telemarketing ring were named in a three-count fraud indictment handed up yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court.
Prosecutors say ring members bought more than 185,000 names from U.S.-based brokers to find victims to dupe into turning over hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to claim the ...
Jul 22, 2009, 6:51 pm - - Lottery News forum
Recent checks of Iowa Lottery retailers find no fraud
Security checks at lottery ticket sale locations at about 200 locations statewide in recent months have revealed no improper payments of prizes to or by store personnel, Iowa's lottery chief told a panel of state legislators last week.
Terry Rich, chief executive officer of the Iowa Lottery, played up the safety and profitability of the lottery before members of the Legislature's Oversight Committee in the wake of an expansive report by Iowa's Ombudsman of State. The April report found the lo ...
Jun 15, 2009, 7:14 am - - Lottery News forum
Joint task force created to stop Jamaica lottery scams
The feds are cracking down on Jamaican lottery scams, which bilked Americans out of more than $30 million last year, authorities said Tuesday.
The brazen con artists are transforming the tropical getaway into a fraudsters paradise pulling in untraceable cash to finance the drug and gun trades with impunity, officials said.
It's just an incredible amount of money that's coming down here, said Vance Callender, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kingston.
...
May 27, 2009, 3:25 pm - - Lottery News forum
N.C. lottery store owners, employees winning big and often
Some of the same people who sell North Carolina Education Lottery tickets are winning big and winning often and that makes some people suspicious.
Of the lottery retailers winning prizes, some are amassing significant jackpots repeatedly $100,000, $300,000, and $500,000 prizes dozens of times a year.
Is it just dumb luck? Or do these insiders have some kind of inside track? And what is the state doing about it?
A regular lottery player first brought the pattern of retailers winning the ...
May 1, 2009, 2:50 pm - - Lottery News forum
New report criticizes Iowa Lottery security
Report claims lottery not investigating fraud complaints
The state ombudsman issued a report Tuesday alleging Iowa Lottery officials have failed to adequately protect the enterprise's customers from fraud and theft by retailers.
Iowa Citizens' Aide/Ombudsman Bill Angrick said his review of three years' worth of lottery investigations found numerous customer complaints where leads went unexplored and potential crimes were not pursued.
And, Angrick said in a 210-page report, even when the ...
Apr 22, 2009, 12:08 pm - - Lottery News forum
Man loses house in lottery scam
Police have revealed that an elderly man from south west Scotland has lost his home to a foreign lottery scam.
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary made a renewed appeal to the public to be aware of the danger of bogus letters.
They said two people in the region had recently lost significant sums of money with one of them actually ending up losing his own property as a result.
Police warned the public never to give out bank details to anyone offering to give them significant lottery winni ...
Apr 4, 2009, 9:18 am - - Lottery News forum
More Calif. stores accused of stealing customers' lottery prizes
Perhaps you're not quite as unlucky in the lottery as you thought.
That scratcher ticket you tossed? Well, it just might have been a winner with the cash prize going to none other than the store owner or clerk you passed it off to as garbage.
Ten retailers and clerks are accused of trying to cash in customers' winning lottery tickets at three locations in San Jose, two in Milpitas and one in Santa Clara. Nine people were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of felony grand theft of lottery ticket ...
Mar 6, 2009, 7:59 am - - Lottery News forum
Lottery retailers busted in raid
Store owners, clerks accused of stealing winning tickets
Lottery officials raided several mini marts Tuesday in Fresno, California.
Owners and clerks were taken away in handcuffs after undercover investigators say the suspects cheated would-be customers by lying about winning tickets.
Late last year officers posing as consumers showed up at many local mini marts to test their honesty. More than a dozen store owners and employees failed. Today, authorities caught up with them at the busi ...
Jan 22, 2009, 11:45 am - - Lottery News forum
Woman scammed out of $400,000 pursuing lottery-sized fortune
This may well be the mother of all Internet scam cases.
Janella Spears, a reverend and a registered nurse from Sweet Home, Oregon, ended up sending Nigerian fraudsters more than $400,000 when she was promised a multi-million dollar pay out from a lost relative.
When she began to doubt she was sent letters from the FBI Director, the US President and the President of Nigeria. She still thought it was genuine and ignored the pleas of her family and law enforcement officials in the US.
She ...
Dec 9, 2008, 1:23 am - - Lottery News forum
