A letter informs a Largo woman that she has won thousands of dollars. She smells trouble and spreads the word to protect others.
By ANGIE GREEN
Published July 18, 2003
LARGO - Anne Sulaiman hung up the phone exasperated and slightly annoyed.
She had just talked to a man in Madrid who urged her to send him $1,450 so she could collect $790,809 that she supposedly won in a Spanish lottery.
Sulaiman and her husband, Aka, live in Largo but have traveled to Spain. So when she received a letter last weekend about her supposed winnings, she reasoned it was possible someone she knew had bought her a ticket to the El Gordo lottery, which does exist in Spain.
Then she talked to the man in Spain who identified himself as Adam Williams.
"What a motormouth and not pleasant," she said. "It all sounded so unbelievable. None of it rang true." He didn't sound very well-organized, she said, and a woman was shouting in the background.
A form accompanying the letter also asked for private bank account information.
Sulaiman smelled a scam.
She could have just dropped the whole thing into the trash, but Sulaiman, 69, worked with the elderly and worried that some of them may become victims of the counterfeit lottery.
"I am very fond of the elderly," she said. "They need people to watch out for them."
She went looking for someone to turn the matter over to.
She called Largo police.
The police told her to call the U.S. postal inspector's field office in Tampa.
The postal inspector's office said it had never heard of the lottery scam called El Gordo Spanish Sweepstake Lottery Company S.A.
"Everybody gave me someone else to call," Sulaiman said.
A spokeswoman for the Florida Attorney General's Office, JoAnn Carrin, said she has never heard of El Gordo, either.
But the El Gordo scam letters are not unknown in Florida.
Joe Crankshaw, a columnist for the Stuart News, near West Palm Beach, wrote in April that at least 12 states have issued warnings about an El Gordo scam, and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that two women in Miami were arrested in December on fraud charges after claiming to be representatives from El Gordo lottery.
Also, a Houston woman lost almost $7,000 trying to collect from the bogus sweepstakes, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office, which has also issued a warning.
There's another good reason not to believe in foreign lottery pitches, say postal officials: Participating in a foreign lottery is illegal under federal law, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a $1-million fine.
Linda Walker, a U.S. postal inspector in Tampa, warned that any such offer is likely to be a scam.
"I've been doing this for nine years, and I know of no one who has won money through a foreign lottery," she said. "Taking money is usually their main goal." Postal inspectors call them "bootleggers."
Postal officials advise people who receive foreign lottery letters to throw them away or send them to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Operations Support Group in Chicago. A fraud complaint form can also be filed at www.usps.com
- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Angie Green can be reached at 445-4224 or agreen@sptimes.com
To report a scam
People who receive suspicious solicitations by mail are advised to call the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Tampa field office: (813) 281-5200. They can mail the letter to U.S. Postal Inspection Service Operations Support Group, 22 S Riverside Plaza, Suite 1250, Chicago, IL, 60606.
