A man who fraudulently won £2.5m on the National Lottery is facing up to six additional years in prison unless he hands over nearly £940,000 in assets.
As reported by BBC News, Edward Putman was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for pocketing £2.5m by creating a fake winning ticket, but now faces six more years behind bars.
At the proceeds of crime hearing, Putman was told he had three months to pay £939,782 worth of assets or face an additional sentence.
“Mr. Putman does not accept or agree the benefit figure or realisable assets, but will not be contesting these proceedings,” Lawrence Selby, Putman’s lawyer told the hearing at St Albans Crown Court.
It is understood that the asset he must hand over is his house and land in Hertfordshire, where he had planned to build a hotel.
This comes just weeks after two men were jailed after they had attempted to cash in a £4m scratch card winning they had bought using a stolen debit card.
Jon Watson, of Nutall Avenue, Little Lever and Mark Goodram, of no fixed abode, went to beg in London in 2019, eventually buying the winning ticket at a Waitrose store on Clapham Common.
The two fraudsters were only caught when they admitted that neither of them had a bank account for the winnings to go to, despite having paid for the ticket with a debit card.
