Woman allegedly steals winning lottery ticket from friend

The wife who ran off with her lover and 6 million baht lottery winnings belonging to her husband is not the only lottery ticket scandal in Thailand.

A lottery winner in the central province of Chachoengsao filed a complaint against her friend saying she stole her 20,000 baht prize-winning lottery ticket.

The lottery winner, 54 year old Paradee Chanwat, told police that she bought 11 lottery tickets on Saturday, November 12. When she checked on November 16 she discovered one of them, 849272, was the fifth prize-winning ticket worth 20,000 baht.

Paradee posted a picture of the winning lottery ticket on Facebook announcing that she was going to claim the prize the next day.

On Thursday, November 17, Paradee took her winning ticket to the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative near Chin Market, where she met 61 year old Kamnueng (surname reserved) and stopped to chat with her.

Paradee said they were friends and met frequently because they worked near each other. Paradee told Kamnueng about the lottery prize and showed her the winning ticket.

Paradee continued to the bank but then discovered that her lottery ticket had disappeared. She looked everywhere for it and couldn’t find it so she asked a guard to check the security cameras.

The security camera revealed that Paradee dropped the lottery ticket while talking to Kamnueng. Her friend picked it up but did not return it to her.

Paradee showed Kamnueng the CCTV footage and asked her to return the ticket but Kamnueng refused. Kamnueng claimed she picked up some trash not the lottery ticket.

Paradee tried to persuade her friend several times but she refused so, she decided to file a complaint with the police.

Kamnueng was invited to the police station for questioning where she admitted that she had kept the lottery ticket. She told police she would return it to Paradee. But, when she was released from custody and met Paradee again, she told her she had not taken it.

Paradee told Thai media that she did not want the money anymore and was going to prosecute Kamnueng and let the court decide on her fate.

The drama continues.