Farrakh NizzarMan guilty over trying to claim £1million prize
A shopworker who tried to cheat a great
grandmother out of a £1m lottery jackpot has been sentenced.
Farrakh Nizzar (born
30/07/1982), of Woodlands Road, Crumpsall, Manchester, pleaded guilty to fraud
by false representation at an earlier hearing and today, 20 August 2012, was
sentenced to 30 months in prison at Minshull Street Crown Court.
Nizzar was arrested and
charged after attempting to falsely claim the one million prize on the UK
National Lottery's Euromillions draw.
Camelot, operator of the UK National Lottery, carried out
security checks on Nizzar after he claimed the prize and alerted police in
Oldham after suspicions about the validity of his claim.
Inquiries established that Nizzar, who worked
at the Best One Convenience Store on Watersheddings Street, Oldham, told the
77-year-old victim that she did not have a winning ticket when she returned from
holiday and visited the shop to see if she had won a prize.
Nizzar scanned the ticket into a lottery
machine which confirmed the woman had the winning numbers, but deliberately told
her she had missed out. After she left the shop, Nizzar then called the lottery
hotline and tried to claim the jackpot for himself, saying he had bought the
ticket at the Best One store.
But Camelot exposed his lie after carrying out security checks
and called police. A warrant was executed at his home but he was not present.
However, he was stopped and arrested when his car triggered an Automatic Number
Plate Recognition (ANPR) response as his details had been circulated as wanted.
The genuine owner of the
winning ticket has now been traced.
Detective Constable Kate Carnally said: "Nizzar's actions were
at best foolish, and at worst, extremely cruel.
"He knew this woman had a winning ticket and chose to lie
to her, deliberately duping her out of a life-changing sum of money that would
have meant financial security for her and her husband in their
retirement.
"Whether it
was a moment of madness in which he was blinded by the prospect of becoming a
millionaire only he can know, but to cheat an elderly woman and try and claim
the money for himself was both callous and underhand, but thankfully he did not
get away with his scam.
"Throughout this investigation we have worked very closely with
Camelot and we should applaud the diligence and thoroughness of Camelot's
internal security checks which effectively exposed Nizzar as a liar. As a
result, we launched a criminal investigation and picked Nizzar up using ANPR
software.
"Because of
that, Nizzar has been brought to justice and just as importantly, the genuine
owner of the ticket has been paid out what was always rightfully hers."
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