Lotto 6/49 theft
Monday December 7th 2009A group of four long term friends and co workers have experienced a turbulent period after a $5.7 million Lotto 6/49 theft. The winning lottery ticket belonging to them all was cashed in by someone else. After one of the four took the lottery ticket to a Toronto convenience store for checking, she returned empty handed after being told by the store owner that the Canadian Lottery ticket was not a winner.
It came to light that there had been a wrong doing when one of the four friends later checked the lottery numbers to find that the lottery ticket was in fact a winner. This obviously caused a lot of tension between them as it was thought that Lorraine Teicht, who had initially taken the lottery ticket to the store for validation, had in fact stolen the winnings. The store owner Hafiz Malik, in fact held onto the ticket for six months before claiming the win from the Canadian Lottery as his own. He has now pleaded guilty to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp, of fraudulently claiming the money and is due to be sentenced on 16th March.
When people buy lottery tickets, they do so in good faith and would rightly expect this good faith when they call at any store to have their tickets checked.
Buying lottery tickets online is far safer and more convenient and this is probably the route that these four people will take when the purchase Canadian lottery tickets in the future