Gullible Greek falls for lottery swindle
Two Britons and two Syrians believed to have swindled a Thessaloniki man out of thousands of euros in an online scam were yesterday committed for trial on fraud charges. The four suspects, who are all at large abroad, are believed to have jointly planned the scam in November 2005. One of them allegedly sent an e-mail to the victim with a message falsely informing him that he had won the equivalent of 3.2 million euros in a British lottery draw. The message asked him to send a wire transfer of 6,250 euros to cover procedural expenses. The victim made this payment but then got another e-mail asking him to pay another 24,000 euros in taxes into an account that, it later transpired, belongs to one of the suspects. The victim then contacted the bank where his winnings ostensibly had been deposited and realized he had been conned.
