Lottery fraud : Lucky 7 - the fifth estate

so a guy goes into a bar to ask his buddy for a loan I asked him for 3,000 he says 2500 but it was 3,000 don't let him uh don't let him lie to yet lending money to friends is not always a good thing especially when the mooch says right up front that this would be no ordinary loan and I said well I'm not going to pay you back and then he started getting a little upset the knew something his buddy didn't know before too long $3,000 would be Pocket Change we're just kind of looking around like every once in a while I was like we're millionaires this is the amazing true life story of the long road to riches for the most unlikely crowd of millionaires you'll ever meet cheers boys millionaires they were like seven guys who were just down to guys and were about to have a lot of fun I would have loved to be with him that night so Seven 8 n 10 years ago would have been in Vegas blowing a whole lot of money probably but it's also the story of a family who might have won a jackpot that belonged to someone else I don't want to discuss anything forther so finished with everything good evening I'm Lyndon McIntyre it's a mystery story wrapped in a mystery that won't be fully solved for maybe another year but here's what we have for now someone collects a huge Lottery prize that really belongs to somebody else how that happened is something that the courts will decide eventually but the really amazing part of the story is how the money after seven years ended up in the hands and pockets of seven ordinary guys who for all that time didn't have a clue that one day they'd be rich [Music] for the newly wealthy there's nothing like a round of golf to keep you humble they've been hanging out together for years working hard to earn their money and playing hard at spending it that was more of a hockey slap shot than shot but hey it works for you now with easy money in their pocket unmistakable reminders that not much else has changed what do you mean wearing in the wrong way over there even golf can't spoil the fun for these guys Jim rean we haven't really change we're all just the same guys and nobody goes walks around acting like they're all that or anything you know it's we just we're just seven guys that happen to be lucky enough to win the lottery you're still buying tickets y of all people we should believe if any if anybody says nobody wins that they're they're wrong because because you guys didn't just win yeah you won an amazing fashion yeah yeah we beat the odds in every [Music] [Applause] way it all starts with a lotto ticket Christmas 2003 at a convenience store in St Catherine's Ontario someone buys what's called a super seven random Quick Pick days later that quick pick ticket is checked a half hour away in [Music] Burlington and happy day it wins a free ticket for a big draw just days away Boxing Day 2003 that's right ladies and gentlemen today's the day come in and safe safe safe but for Millions in Ontario the boxing day Bargains weren't half as enticing as the lottery that would make someone richer by 12.5 million the balls of Destiny tumble and after that Boxing Day draw a woman telephones the Ogg and claims the prize for her brother owner of the winning ticket she says half million tiet it sounds straightforward but more than 8 years later a lot of people are still dealing with the Fallout from that phone [Music] call February 5th 2004 the woman caller Kathleen Chung shows up at the OGG but now she claims to be the owner of the winning ticket you have a winning ticket let go let's see what you got what she's got besides the ticket is a confusing story her brother she says she doesn't have a brother she just made that up to protect herself she's surprisingly vague about where and when she bought that first ticket the one that got her the freebie that now seems to have hit the jackpot she would eventually admit that she had a brother after all that he was the manager of the store the winning ticket came from and her father worked there too all of which made the OGG investigators lery all this was above board she assured them suspicious o investigators say they asked her to take a lie detector test and that she agreed but later on reflection she refused the people at the OGG prize office were sure that there was something fishy about her story and they stalled her for a year there were too many blank spots and contradictions lies even she really did have a brother and he was the manager of that store that validated her winning ticket in the end the OGG surrendered paid out the 12.5 million as one official put it elegantly in an internal memo sometimes you hold your nose so what do you do when you're suddenly carrying 12 and A2 big ones in your purse Kathleen did what any sensible person would do she went shopping a $2 million mansion that backed onto a golf course eye popping jewelry clothes a little Fleet of fancy cars out in the real world life went on people working for a living dreaming the dream buying lotto tickets every week always a long shot but isn't that what faith is a gamble but sometimes faith can be misplaced and for a little band of working men in Southern Ontario the lotto Boxing Day 2003 would be a Priceless lesson in the complexity of human nature [Music] by 2006 the OLG thought they'd put the fishy Kathleen Chung jackpot behind them they'd moved on then a scandal that would bring it back and more tonight on The Fifth Estate it's the lottery Fiasco that got Canada talking a lot Optimist named Bob Edmonds told The Fifth Estate that he'd won a quarter of a million on a lotto ticket but that someone ripped him off Bob was pretty typical of Lotto buyers small town modest means and High Hopes always bought his tickets in the same convenience store with his help we'd discover a major weakness in the lotto system the ease with which a crooked storekeeper could scam trusting folk like Bob Edmonds his story set off shock waves of Suspicion about lotteries across the country Ontario's utsman Andre Maran started investigating Lotto wind in early 2007 so this investigation started you know after we viewed the after I viewed the show and was sufficiently alarm and threw everything in motion and within a matter of 90 days we found tens of millions of dollars essentially uh Missing in very suspicious circumstances so you know it was shocking for us to learn that this could happen in 2007 in the provincial government you don't ask any questions among the most shocking cases in the fire that 12.5 Million jackpot from Boxing Day the the lady who claimed the ticket claimed no affiliation with the uh retailer um a lie misrepresented herself the OGG had very serious suspicion that uh because they knew that the last name was the same that she was uh related and therefore may not be the Bonafide winner and simply let the time collaps and wrote a $12.5 million check it's astounding so to me that was it was indicative of an organization that was rotting and that needed a torpedo and the torpedo was uh the very public report that we uh that we made on the Ogg and the Warhead was this particularly egregious 12 and a half million that's correct David Kaplan was the Ontario Minister for lotteries and he quickly promised action on the ombudsman's report make no mistake there will be no delay in implementing and moving forward on these recommendations he handed over a number of fishy Lotto files to the Ontario Provincial Police one of them just [Music] guess in 2007 the Ontario Provincial Police were investigating the case and questioned Kathleen Chong that same year the family would also meet with The Fifth Estate cuz we were investigating this case too producers met informally with her father Jun chol Chong at a coffee shop and tried to clear up contradictions in her early stories to the OLG he didn't realize that we were recording the meeting I'll just read slowly okay presented to the pridee office February 5th 2004 did not identify affiliation with retail that so that's she did not explain that her brother owned or managed the store and didn't explains that you worked in the store and then how do they find out this is something wrong you're saying that's incorrect incorrect that they're lying that's right call this guy typical buys lotto tickets for his buddies six of them they work construction all over Southern Ontario but are as close as brothers every week for years they pulled their money and trusted this guy with the task of finding them a winner Dan Campbell my buying habit was only one store is going to sell the winning ticket so buy from as many stores as you can which apparently works when we come back a dying woman's intuition she was lethargic but she sat up and looked at me and said call it's your [Music] money good evening everyone three members of a GTA family have been charged with fraud accused of stealing a winning lottery ticket worth $12.5 million September 2010 juncho Chung father of Kathleen Chong and her brother Kenneth all three charged with fraud and money laundering over that free ticket that was validated in this store 7 years before that free ticket was taken so the person that played up till that point is the person we need to find they didn't get their free ticket somebody else got it and cash it yeah years had elapsed someone among the millions of Lotto players in Ontario won big late in 2003 and didn't know it now the word was out and with 12.5 million on the line there would be a lot of interest how did you find out that there was a mystery ticket out there and I just heard about it on the news read it in the paper that kind of thing his cool response to the tantalizing news was far from typical hundreds of Lotto players imagined the mystery ticket belonged to them the OGG prize office was swamped with calls good morning this is Betty speaking home hope you answer the questions and I'll just go through them what I'll be doing today is going through a series of questions I'll be documenting the information that you provide today and that information will be forwarded along with this call to a member of the Ontario Provincial Police Lisa baluk is an investigator with the OGG you get a bunch of those funks calls what what was what were the phone calls like you know what it was actually really exciting to take those calls I honestly every time every time I talk to a customer I thought I wonder if this is the winner we took in 661 calls there were a small group of us taking the calls and it was busy it was busy it was a busy time all the validations activations it's at a click rate now the OGG had come a long way in a few years after being wrapped on the knuckles by the Ontario udman in 2007 they had developed sophisticated ways of monitoring ticket sales by 2010 they had a special computer program called Dart for tracking tickets and ticket buyers with uncanny accuracy Dart gives instant access to billions of lottery transactions going back to 1999 Rick boo invented Dart we identify and we have the capabilities now with dart to go in and spend more time analyzing and detect any fraudulent Behavior the Ontario Lottery processes more than 1.2 billion tickets a year every ticket anybody buys can be linked to every other ticket that person purchases tickets have identities and through them people who buy tickets regularly create patterns that are revealing about the buyers we have customers that play a lot of tickets so for a customer that maybe purchases one ticket the odd time it's harder to build a large profile but if you have a customer that's purchasing say multiple tickets or purchasing over an extended period of time it helps us build a a more robust profile on the customer we'll start out June 24th and we'll start with the validation of that ticket so at 92221 there is a purchase of a Lotto 649 maybe I'll start with the location this location can be one color just to separate them out Rick and Lisa were able to connect hundreds of tickets that were related to the one that scored the 12 and a half million doll prize and over time discovered a purchase pattern that told them almost everything except the buyer's name we know that he definitely had uh a unique spending habit we also know that he lived in a city a specific City and probably worked in another city and that would be reflective of the times of days and days of the week that uh he was purchasing and validating his tickets so all these people who regularly buy tickets are leaving Footprints and fingerprints everywhere where they buy a ticket yes and you can follow the footprints back to wherever in order to prove whether it's their ticket or not it's that it's that simple correct it's a work from home day today it's perfect yeah no I find it's way easier to concentrate Rick and Lisa in one weekend working from their homes designed the questions that would screen out the bogus claimants for the 12 and a half million what questions do you think will help prompt those answers to come out and these are kind of generic questions yeah if I called you up and said I hear just a 12.5 million ticket floating around I think it's mine what's the first thing you'd ask me I would start uh trying to ask where you do your purchases how often do you attend that location how much money do you spend do you generally validate your ticket it's a profile and the more information you have the uh easier the decisions are to be made because you know the answers you're supposed to hear from me yes and if I didn't give you the right answer I'm out yes at the OGG call center in Sous St Marie the calls went on for weeks then slowed to a trickle the year 2010 was running down the mystery was tur turning into a conundrum then one of those Eerie plot twists that just leaves you wondering about things like fate and destiny a woman terminally ill with cancer emerges from a semicom with a peculiar message for her brother Dan Campbell when we went in they had the nurses said that she was medicated so she would be in and out and that and just to talk she was pretty seriously ill yes she was um and to just um Talk Amongst ourselves and when she was uh able she'd jump in and out of the conversation so she was lethargic but she sat up and looked at me and said call it's your money she was between life and death and she seemed to know something about the future yeah we were leaving I uh went and gave her a hug told her I loved her and I'd see her again that was on a Friday I I said I'd be back either Sunday or Monday and then uh she'd said it again she said make sure you call it's your money and then uh later that night early Saturday morning um we we got the call that she'd passed away and uh I thought I owed it to her to at least try so you called yeah that's why I called wow more of fidelity to his dying sister than any kind of Hope Dan called the Ogg and left a message hello my name is Daniel Campbell I'm calling to put a claim in on uh the Super 7 prize that I saw the call back came from the opp the police what did you think did you think this had something to do with the ticket or did you think I thought I was in trouble for something but uh you had a guilty conscience I always do but yeah they just uh they had asked me to come in for an interview and made arrangements to go go in the next day and that's what we did it would be the first of many meetings with the cops tell me about the interview um they just asked me questions like obviously where I worked and um where I lived the relationship between St Catherine's and Burlington and my buying habits where I'd buy tickets when I'd buy tickets just that type of thing thing these guys were looking for certain answers right yeah did you realize that at the time that no this was a test no I didn't well looks like this customer is in one location quite a bit if I look at all the green markings here the investigators even knew well before the police contacted Dan where the rightful owner bought most of his tickets over years he'd played the lotto game across the street from Dan Campbell's house in St Catherine's so this is a pretty convenient spot if you're going to play the very convenient that's the store right over there yep right there and that was the big uh clue I guess that was pretty definitive um from my understanding yeah yeah bought tickets at a lot of places but that was the the primary location of where I'd get them mhm but for them uh uh a bell went off when you mentioned the address y y they they had told me that later eventually the police took Dan on a tour through southern Ontario Avendale right here on your left they just told me show me where you bought tickets and they did and you remembered yeah see this is like more than S years after yeah but you remember everything I still can't believe it that I did I forget what I had for breakfast most days but what a memory he had for lotto purchases in 2003 he'd been working on construction all over the place and the cops knew exactly where the rightful winner had been buying tickets a lot of them were uh next to Tim Horton's because we'd stopped for coffee and the one guy would go get the coffee I'd go to the convenience store next door the gas station and pick up a couple tickets the tour went on for 2 days Dan was able to get employment records from his boss for 2003 that clenched it for the cops but they had a warning he mustn't tell a soul not even the friends who'd shared the ticket when we were finished we were heading back and uh I had asked them I said well how am I doing in comparison to to other people you've interviewed and they said uh you're 100% and I said well is anyone close and they said the next closest person might be get 10% so then it I I had a pretty IDE good idea that uh that this was going to turn out well for us when we come back the payday of a lifetime cheers boys millionaires hey [Music] Dan Campbell was unemployed and flat broke he needed a loan but he was also bursting to tell someone what was going on so he called Jim ran one of the six other guys he'd been buying for we said sat down and I asked him if I could borrow some money cuz I didn't have any um I asked him for 3,000 he says 2500 but it was 3,000 don't let him uh don't let him lie to you he asked when I was going to pay him back and I said well I'm not going to pay you back and then he started getting a little upset and who wouldn't he wants to borrow money and doesn't plan to pay it back Jim knew his buddy Dan had a quirky s of humor and he knew that Dan was broke what he didn't know was that Dan had a secret those meetings with the opp the likelihood that he and Jim and five of their best Pals were about to become millionaires Dan wasn't supposed to tell not even them but the Temptation and his need for a loan became too much well then he tells you what's up didn't believe him you didn't believe him no well actually when he told told me that he said that the ticket was ours um I said to him I says oh well all right then let me run to the ATM machine and get your your money and then I laughed and then another 10 15 minutes after trying to convince him still didn't believe me so I had called uh one of the investigating officers cuz I told her that I was going to try and B money off Jim so if he didn't believe me I'd call her and um that's what I had to do okay yeah she gave me her badge number and her all the stuff all the information over the phone and said it was our ticket of course I didn't believe her I actually I believe I said uh okay so uh this is Dan's mom and we were playing a joke on him but eventually uh he came to believe me and he did lend me the money and did you pay it back yes he made me pay it back too soon all seven were celebrating but still it had to be a secret from everybody else it was to be a rare good news story for the OGG still reeling from past controversy over fraud you couldn't buy PR like this seven ordinary Joe's Redeemed by diligence and Ingenuity Joe rean Millionaire the way it happened was kind of was kind of cool it was a big deal when everybody found out they uh they're like how long did you know I'm like for a while and I had gone to a hockey tournament the weekend before and didn't tell anybody and they're like how did you not say anything I'm like cuz until that piece of paper was in my hand it wasn't true and then on January 27th 2011 it was all too true this little band of working guys were on the ride of a lifetime riding in style to collect after interest $2.1 million each what's going on in the limo a lot of laughing lot of laughing a lot of high fives a lot of high fives how much money did you have in the limo depends I didn't have any I was broke broke heading for the city but by now there is no longer any doubt they'd be going home full-fledged millionaires it was a celebration for the winners but also a magic moment for the sleuths who found them so I'm tring of imagine that day you know at the press conference and suddenly Dan stands up you knew Dan for years and he didn't know he didn't know how much you knew about him yes was so nice to finally find these winners and you know to actually go in there and meet was like I never thought I would see the day what did it mean for you to be in that room it's amazing absolutely amazing uh I was introduced and uh people the wives just going in the room it's just overwhelming and you know you've changed the lives of people that know we did make a difference team made a difference you seen the happiness within the room as you experience that it's really hard to say anything because you're just fighting with your words it's very emotional the celebrity was new and they ate it up every more so we were more surprised about what OLG gave us for uh free little loot bag what was in the loot bag pens and notepads 5 you show things Dan I'm not going to lie you scooped some peanut butter and stuff did you not I took the jam the jam sorry was using it they would have thrown it out so took it home couldn't be better guys they were like seven guys who were just down to earth guys and were about to have a lot of fun I would have loved to be with them that night Li got knocked dude winning with interest close to $115 million can make a fell thirsty so first stop after all the hoopla at theg a liquor store this would be a party they could all afford cheers boys million a day of memories to last forever even if the money doesn't after years denied their winnings a surprising lack of ranker they're even grateful in a way millionaires Mike Maddox and Dan McGregor ever cross your mind that you got ripped off a bit you know all this was delayed by that much time I was actually kind of glad that happened s years later me too yeah me too I was in a different spot in my life no kids more mature right now different priorities yeah so you 10 seven eight nine 10 years ago would have been in vas blowing a whole lot of money probably but winning this way was a blast a thriller as for the money a $2 million windfall wasn't going to change these guys right there so Dan what was your big the biggest trail what was the moment that will always stick in your mind after after uh we got the money I went over to uh Topps in uh Niagara Falls New York and I got a gallon of milk for a buck that to me was exciting I I grabbed five or six of them I have a picture somewhere that was exciting I was really excited about that you still on your counter hi are you Kathleen when we come back money on the run I'm with the CBC I'm not interested anymore I'm I'm I'm done with this it's just too much we don't I don't want to go through this again [Music] so let's go back to the beginning Dan Campbell bought lotto tickets in St Catherine's in December 2003 for himself and his six bluecollar Buddies thank you days later he checked his tickets at variety Plus in Burlington where Kenneth and Jun Cho Chung worked this is where the story gets murky and legal certain things we aren't allowed to tell you because the courts won't let us we can tell you that Dan Campbell won a free play ticket and that this free ticket won 12.5 million bucks on boxing day 2003 and that Kathleen Chong whose brother and father ran the store where Dan Campbell checked his ticket eventually collected the prize the police believe her father and her brother frequently stole tickets from their customers and it finally paid off when they stole Dan Cathleen chun's claim that it was hers is bogus according to the OGG remember the dart system for tracking tickets OLG investigators concluded only one person could have bought that ticket Dan Campbell the mystery is still unfolding just how did the chongs end up with the winning ticket but what they did with the 12 1/2 million bucks is less mysterious the Lottery Corporation is now suing to get it back which might not be quite as easy as it sounds forensic accountant Peter McFarland where the complexity comes from is in the the volume of transactions and the period of time over which it occurred according to documents filed for the OGG lawsuit which has yet to be contested the family stashed the money in more than 20 bank accounts in the names of individuals and companies and trusts and there was residential and commercial property and lots of luxuries the documents also say that chungs at some point moved part of the prize money to a bank in South Korea from their perspective whether they feel that uh they were entitled to that money uh or not uh they may have felt that that money was under threat and if things didn't go their way uh perhaps they would need to take precautions to make sure that they could retain some some of the funds in percentage terms what are the chances that the OGG is going to get some or any significant amount of that money back I would uh Li and on to getting it all back if the proceeds went to Korea lots of luck getting him back assuming that uh there was no cooperation from uh uh the people that transferred the money it's uh quite a complex and costly process to try and retrieve that that money for their part the chongs deny that they did anything wrong and are waiting for a chance to plead their case Kathleen Chong who cashed the winning ticket has an added Wrinkle In Her defense if in fact her father or her brother stole the ticket she didn't know it and cashed it in honestly believing that they got it fair and square obviously we wanted to get their side of the story but they're not talking the most they've said publicly was what I managed to get out of Kathleen when we tracked her down in 2007 hi are you Kathleen yes hi my name is Lyndon yeah I'm with the CBC yes and uh we wanted to have a an interview with you I'm not interested anymore I'm I'm I'm done with this it's just too much we don't I don't want to go through this again just no more what have you gone through just I don't want to be hassled I don't want not really a hassle I don't want to discuss anything further so finished with everything I'm living my life I'm happy whether she wants to or not she'll be discussing her hassle sooner or later in a civil lawsuit filed by the OLG and possibly a trial on charges of Fraud and money laundering filed against her her brother and her [Music] father boys with unexpected unearned money will buy expensive toys it's what you do at least two of these big boys are no exception well it took you long enough to get here we left at the same time well you heard me coming two guys behind you bought big muscle cars two single guys bought muscle cars the guys who were married had to buy their wies cars too they weren't muscle cars uh I the first thing I bought was uh a brand new Explorer for her and then I ordered my truck and we bought a house becoming millionaires changed their lives a little bit not near as much as people like them think when it's just a dream they still buy tickets get up and go to work each day it's a little different when you get to walk into work if you don't have to be there you want to be there but you don't have to be there gives you a little different outlook on life you know I go to work cuz I want to go to work not cuz I have to go to work it's a nice option to have if the money bought them anything of value it's a certain Liberation from uncertainty well my wife she was pregnant at the time so with our second child so that was a a big relief off my shoulders a lot of money went to helping yeah family and stuff like that that was good to help we like it was it was nice to give my in-laws and my dad and brother sister-in-law everything so it was that was nice I like doing that and it's also how they won that their story leaves a legacy that for them is almost more important than the money almost because of our story like it will never happen again and people are protected now from uh anything like this happen again I think I'm more proud of that than any thing that uh it won't happen to anybody else at the OGG they hope is right after tens of millions the edsman reported lost to fraud there's little hope of getting much if any of it back if if I was going to beat you up in an interview I'd say you know what the OG screwed up once it the wrong people got a ticket uh how am I to know you're not going to screw up again you would say what I would say we followed best practices back then and I look at technology today and just on generally of Technology overall this will never happen again you're not a bit nervous making a broad claim like that our capabilities and the fact that anything over $10,000 or anything deemed suspicious goes over to the Ontario Provincial Police we've come a long way so you will find the person who bought the ticket and validated the ticket no matter how hard they try to seal that's right you're pretty confident I'm pretty confident remember Bob Edmunds his story ended happily but also sadly he got his money but he died shortly afterwards he sure remember that the OGG he's the guy who really woke them up first exposed a major weakness in the system the potential for Deceit by people who sell lotto tickets it's a measure of how far they've come in the past six years that the man who once starred in their worst nightmare now seems to be their patron [Music] saint the Chong case will play out before the courts but the real test will be the effort to get back the 12.5 million the OGG claims the family got through fraud an exercise that according to experts in such matters could cost more than the value of the cash and asset sets they might eventually recover

Channel: The Fifth Estate

Views: 1,290,849

Keywords: lottery, fraud, OLG, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the fifth estate, Linden MacIntyre, CBC, CBC News

Id: T7jYmtqOsl0

Length: 40min 29sec (2429 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2016