Published: 3:23am, 23 Feb 2025Updated: 3:35am, 23 Feb 2025
Thieves used a stolen card to buy a winning French lottery ticket worth €500,000 (US$523,000). But they vanished before cashing in – and now they’re among France’s most famous fugitives.
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The man whose card was stolen, identified in police documents as Jean-David E., is offering to split the cash with the lucky winners. He wants his wallet back, too.
The thieves, meanwhile, face the risk of arrest. As of Saturday, the state lottery operator La Française des Jeux, or FDJ, said that no one had submitted the ticket to cash out.
“It’s an incredible story, but it’s all true,” Jean-David’s lawyer, Pierre Debuisson, said on Saturday.
Jean-David discovered earlier this month that his backpack had been stolen from his car in the southern city of Toulouse, including bank cards and other documents, the lawyer said.
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He asked his bank to block the card, and learned it had already been used in a local shop.
At the shop, a vendor told him two apparently homeless men had used one of his cards to buy the winning scratch-off lottery ticket.