KOCHI: The Kothamangalam police on Wednesday busted a fake lottery racket run by a three-member gang which had defrauded several lottery agents using fake tickets and also broke into house at nights.
Shihabudheen, 32, of Desom, Aluva; Sabu, 47, of Kattappana and Shahul Hameed, 28, of Chelakkara, Thrissur were arrested for duping a lottery shop in Kothamangalam of `5,000 by producing a fake lottery ticket on July 22.
The officers said Shahul Hameed and Shihabudheen, who had earlier served a jail term together in another cheating case, carried out the lottery fraud by using colour printouts of various prize winning tickets.
“The trio defrauded several lottery agents across the state by claiming the prize money using the fake tickets. The fraud came to light when Sabu, the third member of the gang, approached a lottery ticket agent in Kothamangalam to claim a prize money of `5,000 by producing a fake ticket,” the officers said.
“They had been carrying out the fraud since July 14. They began by printing 30 copies of a ticket with a prize money of `100. Two days later, they cheated another batch of lottery agents using the copies of a ticket which won `500,” said a police officer with the Kothamangalam station.
The police raided the house the trio was living in and seized a colour printer, several fake tickets and `32,000 in cash.
Further investigations revealed Sabu had served a jail term for house breaking and was released from jail only last month.
He became acquainted with Shihabudheen while in jail. Besides the lottery fraud, they had also broken into a couple of house during nights.