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Xi'an lottery cheats land in jail
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-02 22:20

Five people suspected of cheating in sports lottery prizes awarded in Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, were arrested on Tuesday, with one suspect still on the run, according to a senior police official.

Wu Jinbiao, deputy director of the Xi'an Municipal Public Security Bureau, announced that local prosecution authorities granted warrants for the arrests of six people on fraud charges. One, Wu Xingfang, is still at large.


Yang Yongming is taken away by the police. [newsphoto]

During the lottery from March 20 to 25 in downtown Xi'an, one of the arrested, Yang Yongming, a private businessman who signed contracts with the local lottery administrations, made a plan to cheat on the four top prizes, each with a BMW car and 120,000 yuan (US$14,460), local police said.

By making marks on the envelopes which contained the numbers for the top prizes, Yang Yongming arranged one of the suspects he employed, Sun Chenggui, to dispense the prizes. Yang also employed another four of the suspects, Wu Xingfang, Yue Bin, Wang Changli and Liu Xiaoli, to falsely claim the top prizes.

The scam was exposed when a local farmer living in the east suburbs of Xi'an, Liu Liang, got one of the envelopes containing the top prize, which had been mistakenly placed by Yang Yongming.

When Liu claimed the prize, however, Yang said the ticket Liu picked up was forged

"I handed over the ticket to Sun Chenggui after the ticket was checked and registered, and the fake ticket they showed to the public next day was not the one I got," Liu Liang said to local media after the cheating was exposed.

"Because Yang did not put any sign on the fake ticket, we do not know who made the forged ticket," said the deputy public security director. That meant a further investigation was needed to make the case clear.

Latest results of investigations indicate that Yang and Sun may be involved in other cheating cases. Investigations found Yang and Sun also cheated in the lotteries in Yan'an and Yulin,two cities in northern Shaanxi, in January and February. They were found to have employed five local people to falsely claim nine Cherry cars.

Yang sent the nine cars back to Xi'an and used them as the prizes for Xi'an March lottery selling. One of the Cherry-brand cars was illegally borrowed and driven by Zhang Yongmin, former director of Shaanxi Provincial Sports Lottery Management Centre. Zhang was later removed from the position after the case was exposed.

So far, two people who took part in the cheating case in Yan'an and Yulin have been detained by local police. Three are on the run, Wu said.

Between the year 2000 and March this year when the sports lottery cheating case was exposed, Yang Yongming had contracted to sell the lottery in Xi'an seven times. A total of 108 top prizes valued at 19 million yuan (US$2.3 million) were claimed.

"However, there is still no information about the people who took top prizes in the past six lotteries selling, and we are continuing our investigations to see who took away this sum of money (the 19 million yuan)," Wu said.

Jia Anqing, director of the Shaanxi Provincial Sports Lottery Administrative Centre, and Fan Hong, director of the Xi'an Municipal Sports Lottery Administrative Centre, were ordered to resign last month.

Top provincial top officials said any officials in local sports administration and notary organs involved in the case must be punished.

Further investigations into the lottery scams are under way, Wu said.

 
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