Four Lotto Fraudsters Grabbed

The National Lottery Authority (NLA) in collaboration with the Volta Regional Police Command have arrested four lotto fraudsters operating in the Region and one of them goes by the name, ‘Demon’ while another is called ‘Last Burial’

The four are 19-year old Godwin Agbenyefia alias Demon, 20-year old Reuben Abusah alias Last Burial, 20-year old Kelvin Kwame Abouzi alias Kartel and 21-year old Kingsley Adelekey who has no nickname.
They operated mainly in and around Akatsi and Ho in the Volta Region.

The Circuit Court in Ho presided over by His Honor, Felix Datsomor has remanded the suspects in police custody to re-appear on Wednesday September 23, 2020.

The lotto fraudsters have created several Facebook accounts, WhatsApp platforms and other social media platforms using the logo and pictures of the Staff of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) and sometimes pictures of other people to defraud the unsuspecting persons.

Their style of operation includes using false pretense to convince their victims to make mobile money transfers to them in exchange of fake winning lotto numbers.

The four arrested and remanded lotto fraudsters receive various sums of money from their victims in order to stake lotto numbers for them.
After the Draw of the lotto numbers by the National Lottery Authority (NLA), the fraudsters send photographs of FAKE Winning Coupons (Prize) to their victims suggesting that they have won lotto.

The lotto fraudsters then demand from their victims that a cash amount ranging between 20 to 40 percent of the money the victims have supposedly won should be transferred to them via mobile before NLA would pay their winning tickets.

Subsequently, after the victims pay the lotto fraudsters with the percentage of the fake winning prize, the fraudsters then quickly block the phone calls of their victims and vanish.

Sometimes, the lotto fraudsters manage to convince their victims to send money for registration to qualify for the leaked winning numbers.

The National Lottery Authority (NLA), in a news statement, has stated categorically that, the Authority has NOT designed any Registration Forms for the public to register for winning lotto numbers.

The NLA statement said the outcome of Lotto Draws are conducted in an open and transparent manner and the Draw is open to the general public for witnessing daily, except Sundays and on public holidays.

It described as “absolutely false that people and staff of the Authority have access to winning lotto numbers.”

The NLA, in the statement, commended the Volta Regional Police Headquarters for a successful operation and said it shall continue to collaborate with the Police and other relevant security agencies to arrest the lotto fraudsters across the Country.

It also called on the public to be vigilant and discontinue engaging the services of the lotto fraudsters because “lotto is a game of chance and it is impossible to foretell winning numbers before Draws”