The techno trail that foiled lotto 'fraudsters'

The techno trail that foiled lotto 'fraudsters'

SPECIAL REPORT: Police relied heavily on experts to break through PINs and passwords to retrieve evidence from suspects' mobile phones

Technology for decoding and transferring data and audio clips stored in smartphones has proved useful for investigating the 30-million-baht lottery scandal. (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)
Technology for decoding and transferring data and audio clips stored in smartphones has proved useful for investigating the 30-million-baht lottery scandal. (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)

The 30-million-baht lottery scandal recently took a significant step closer to being resolved after the police employed high-level software engineers to break through the security features and gather information from the mobile phones of the suspects in the case.

Normally, such techniques are used in more complicated cases involving drug trafficking or security issues.

This time Pol Lt Gen Thitiraj Nhonghanpitak, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), ordered a combined team from the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) and the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) to use the technology to resolve the ongoing dispute over the ownership of first-prize-winning lottery tickets worth 30 million baht in Kanchanaburi.

Police were able to hack into the confiscated handsets to collect the suspects' call history, Global Position System (GPS) location records, photos, text messages and audio clips which were used to check the statements made by suspects during formal interviews with officers.

Data from the phones was particularly enlightening regarding the testimony of the three individuals at the centre of the scandal: Patcharida Phromta, a lottery vendor at Red City market in Kanchanaburi; Rattnaporn Suthathip, another lottery vendor; and Preecha Kraikruan, a teacher to whom Ms Rattanaporn claimed to have sold the first-prize winning lottery tickets to for the Nov 1, 2016 lottery draw.

Ms Patcharida told police she had sold the winning set of lottery tickets with the serial number 533726 on them. She produced a picture she took on her smartphone of the tickets on the lottery stand ahead of the Nov 1 draw.

Previously, she told the Provincial Police Region 7 investigators she "remembered" reselling all three sets of the lottery tickets with the last three digits "726" to Ms Patcharida.

She said she had taken a picture of the lottery tickets on the stand and sent it to other vendors who might be interested in buying the tickets from her.

Ms Rattanaporn told regional police investigators she bought all three sets of the lottery tickets from Ms Patcharida, in a statement initially thought by police to be consistent with that of Ms Patcharida.

Ms Rattanaporn also claimed to have sold the winning lottery tickets to Mr Preecha and later confirmed with him on the phone that he had the winning lottery tickets.

Mr Preecha claimed to have bought the winning tickets, but said he had lost them some time after that.

The wife of a former police officer at Kanchanaburi's Muang district police later emerged as a witness claiming she had asked to buy some lottery tickets from Mr Preecha after she saw them sticking out of his shirt pocket.

But as it turned out, the CSD-TCSD team later found the Red City market was not open on Oct 30 last year, the day Ms Patcharida claimed to have taken the picture of the lottery tickets on the stand. The market is only open on Tuesdays and Fridays and Oct 30 was a Monday.

An audio clip of telephone conversations between Ms Rattanaporn and Mr Preecha shortly after the Nov 1 lottery result was announced was examined.

Ms Rattanaporn asked Mr Preecha if he won any prize and Mr Preecha clearly answered he had not, according to police.

A few minutes later, Ms Rattanaporn called Mr Preecha on the phone again to say that he actually won the first prize draw. However, the teacher said he won only the much smaller prize for the last three digits, 726, on the tickets he bought.

On Nov 2, Ms Rattanaporn called him and insisted he had first prize. Again, Mr Preecha denied this.

She phoned him again several times after that. In the end, the teacher told her to find him the first-prize winning lottery tickets and they would share 15 million baht each of the 30 million baht jackpot.

Ms Rattanaporn said she found out that retired police officer, Pol Lt Jaroon Wimool, had already cashed the winning tickets.

She told Mr Preecha about this and together they went to a police station to lodge a complaint demanding the first-prize payout to Pol Lt Jaroon be suspended.

As for the wife of a former police officer who claimed to have met Mr Preecha at the market, the CSD-TCSD team found from her mobile phones' GPS data that she had actually visited the market on Oct 27, not on Oct 31 last year, as she had claimed.

"Well, let him [Mr Preecha] protest his innocence all he wants. However, if he continues to argue against irrefutable evidence, he might not be eligible for any kind of reduced punishment," Pol Lt Gen Thitiraj said.

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