Spanish lottery vendor who cheated winner out of US$5 million jackpot faces jail

MADRID – A lottery vendor has been sentenced in Spain to three-and-a-half years in prison for cheating the winner of a €4.7 million (US$5.4 million) jackpot out of his prize in 2012, court documents show.

A court in the northwestern city of A Coruña said the vendor realized that the customer had a substantial win when he asked him to check his numbers, but he deliberately deceived the ticket-holder by telling him none of them had come up.

The vendor subsequently tried to cash in the prize by claiming he had found the winning ticket in his shop.

The local lottery administration refrained from paying out the prize, however, and kept the ticket under custody while attempting to find out who owned it. Despite that, the lottery seller tried repeatedly to claim the prize over an eight-year period, the court documents show.

The true owner of the winning ticket died in 2014, but the court ordered the full prize be paid out to the victim’s heirs.

It found the vendor guilty of aggravated fraud. The judgment is not final and subject to appeal before the country’s Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Javi West Larrañaga; Editing by David Latona and Helen Popper)