(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-06 16:52

BEIJING - A lottery vendor has been jailed for life for taking advantage of a system flaw to cash 28 million yuan in lottery tickets illegally, according to a court in northeast China on Tuesday.

Zhao Liqun discovered the flaw in the Welfare Lottery "3D" system in 2005 that enabled a person to buy tickets for unlimited lottery claims within five minutes after the numbers had been announced. He had been making use of it ever since, said sources at the Intermediate People's Court in Anshan City, Heilongjiang Province.

The 36-year-old, who ran three lottery stations in Anshan, "bought" the announced numbers many times and then claimed the prizes from two or three lottery machines simultaneously. He asked his neighbors and friends to cash the tickets at the Welfare Lottery Center of Liaoning Province and to bring back the money to him, according to the court.

The lottery center found the prizes were illegally claimed at the end of last year and reported it to police who arrested Zhao in January.

The court jailed him for life under a charge of fraud and confiscated all his properties.