On 7/1/08, the California Lottery announced that they are using undercover agents to sting dishonest retailers, who cheat lottery winners out of their prizes.
The press release on this matter pointed to a case in Morgan Hill, California where a dishonest retailer (and another individual) are being charged with grand theft of lottery tickets ranging in value from $500 to $25,000.
I decided to see if I could find any additional information on arrests and discovered another one that was reported by cbs13.com in Lodi, California.
CBS 13 in Sacramento, with cameras rolling, approached Baljut Kang (one of the two arrested in Lodi), who refused to talk at first. Eventually, Kang stated to the reporter that the undercover agents found "some ticket in the garbage," which supposedly made them think she and her son were committing fraud.
According to the article, an undercover agent turned in one ticket worth $990 and received only $24. Another ticket was presented at the retailer worth $25,000 but the agent was given $10 for it. The article also states that this was the result of a statewide lottery sting, which might mean there were other retailers caught.
The official press release indicates that this is the first enforcement effort of this kind anywhere in the country. This made me wonder if other states should also run sting operations.
While dishonest retailers getting caught cheating customers is something new, lottery scams are big business for criminals. Spam e-mails, unsolicited telephone calls and even snail mails are used to dupe people into thinking they have won the lottery. Frequently, a person is then asked to negotiate a fraudulent instrument to cover tariffs and taxes and wire the money across an international border.
Article Author: Ed Dickson
Having worked around financial crimes for a number of years, I noticed they seemed to be on the rise. One reason for this is technology, which grows more rapidly than laws designed to protect us from it. …
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