Lottery scam hits pensioners

City of London Police are warning pensioners across the UK to be on their guard against a criminal gang using a lottery fraud to turn many of its victims into money launderers.

Up to 50 elderly and vulnerable people have already been contacted and conned into believing they were winners in a lottery draw they had not even entered, and that to claim their prize they need only pay an admin fee.

Officers found some victims had been instructed to directly transfer their fee into foreign accounts, while others were told to mail cheques to the solicitors said to be handling the transactions.
In reality the 'solicitors' were people who had been duped into believing the same story. But to claim their prize they were told to bank the cheques and transfer the funds into foreign accounts – actions that unknowingly turned them into money launderers.

Over the course of three years an 89-year-old man from Cumbria lost £100,000 of his own money to this con. At the same time he was banking cheques from other victims and forwarding the funds to foreign accounts.

A 90-year-old man from Hertfordshire was also targeted by fraudsters and used right up to his death to launder £31,000.

Reports received show a number of groups of connected victims, the largest being in Surrey and Norfolk. Police found cases of one group of victims sending letters to another group threatening legal action because they had not received their winnings. 

The majority of frauds cited Canadian-based lotteries as the source of the winnings, along with draws from Spain and Jamaica. 

Canada also appears to be where the fraudsters are based, with the majority of transfers running between this country and the UK.

Police believe the total loss to be close to a half a million pounds, with more than half of this sum being circulated amongst UK victims first for them to money launder.

Anthony Williams, who is working with the City of London Police on secondment from the FSA, said:
"This type of lottery fraud can be particularly distressing, with some of the victims being tricked into doing the fraudsters dirty work and then being left to feel like the criminals.

"It is vitally important to think very carefully before responding to a letter, email or telephone call which claims you have won something by doing nothing. Once you let these fraudsters into your life it can be very difficult to get them out."

City of London Police, which is the National Lead Force for fraud, received the first report of this variation of advanced fee fraud from Norfolk Constabulary in October 2009.

Since then victims have been identified in areas covered by 27 different police forces and across areas that include Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, Essex, Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire and Strathclyde. 

Investigators believe this fraud fits into a growing trend, where criminal gangs are systematically targeting the elderly and vulnerable in society and then selling their personal details. 

Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart, from the City of London Police, said:
"With the advances in technology it is becoming easier for fraudsters operating outside the UK to target people living inside the UK.

"What is particularly unpleasant and shameless is the way they seek to take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society. But these criminals should understand that police forces around the world are working together to track them down, wherever they may plying their trade."