Woman Duped of $27,000 in Lottery Scam
Ventura County’s second lottery scam in less than a month occurred this week when an Oxnard woman gave a stranger $27,000 in gold coins after hearing a bogus story about a winning ticket, police said.
The unidentified woman, described only as a senior citizen, told police she was approached by a Latino couple Tuesday outside an Oxnard supermarket. The man told her he couldn’t collect his lottery winnings because he is an undocumented immigrant, police said.
His female accomplice then helped the victim confirm the ticket’s numbers by phoning someone who pretended to be a lottery official, Oxnard Police Sgt. Ronald Whitney said.
Believing she was investing in a winning ticket, the victim drove the man to her bank where she retrieved the coins, Whitney said. The man then left in a small blue car driven by his female accomplice.
A sketchy description of the man in Tuesday’s incident resembles one of two men involved in a similar scam in Ventura on July 16.
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