Second elderly man hit by Mark Six ticket scam
"Don't be greedy" and "think twice" are the messages police are putting out after two elderly men apparently fell foul of a Mark Six scam and were cheated out of HK$12,000 in the past two days.
The latest victim, a 75-year-old man, met a woman in Tai Kok Tsui yesterday and was told she had a Mark Six lottery ticket that had won second prize in Saturday's draw - HK$1.37 million.
"She asked him to collect the prize money for her, claiming she could not because she did not have a Hong Kong identity card," a police officer said. "She promised to share the money, but asked for a HK$10,000 deposit."
The man realised it was a bogus ticket when he went to collect the non-existent prize money at the Jockey Club headquarters in Sports Road, Happy Valley and staff called police to arrest him.
The other victim, a 78-year-old man, was also arrested when he tried to collect prize money at a Jockey Club betting shop in Wan Chai on Tuesday.
He had bought the ticket for HK$2,000 from a man in his 30s who said he had won the second prize in Saturday's draw, but could not collect the prize money because he was not a Hong Kong resident and had to return to the mainland, according to police.
Police are investigating whether the two cases are linked.
"We believe the swindlers bought the genuine lottery tickets on Sunday and altered them to produce the winning second-prize Mark Six numbers for Saturday's draw," one officer said.
