The man who cheated the UK National Lottery out of £2.5 million in 2009 has been released from prison after serving less than half his sentence. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
Conman tricked Camelot
A fraudster who conned Camelot, the former National Lottery operator, out of a £2.5 million ($3.1 million) jackpot has been released by British authorities. Eddie Putman, 58, is a free man after serving less than 4.5 years of a nine-year prison sentence.
Putman was sentenced to prison by Judge Philip Gray at St Albans Crown Court in 2019 after pleading guilty to fraud in the 2009 lottery scam.
He devised a plan to intentionally deliver a counterfeit and damaged National Lottery ticket
Putman and Camelot insider Giles Nibbs devised a plan to present a counterfeit and deliberately damaged National Lottery ticket to claim the 2009 jackpot. Had Putman honored his deal with Nibbs to split the money, his lottery crime might never have come to light.
The massive fraud was exposed in 2015 when Knibbs committed suicide over an altercation with Putman, but not before revealing to his friends the details of the scam for which he was supposed to receive £1 million ($1.2 million).
Scam collapses
Judge Gray told Putman in 2019 that he could have gotten away with the crime but for his greed. “Whatever specific financial split you and Mr Nibbs had agreed upon, you did not pay him the amount he felt he was owed,” Gray explained, adding: “You both disagreed astonishingly.”
Fearing to go to prison for 10-15 years for extortion, Nibbs killed himself
The stunning fallout came to a head six years after he won the lottery, when an angry Nibbs confronted Putman in June 2015, broke his car’s side mirrors and stole his mobile phone. Putman reported the former worker in Camelot’s securities department to the police, who arrested Nibbs on charges of theft, extortion and grievous damage. Fearing to go to prison for 10-15 years for extortion, Nibbs killed himself.
What Then the husband’s scam came to lightThey conspired to counterfeit winning lottery tickets. Nibbs, who died, claimed Putman went to 29 different lottery outlets with a different ticket, before striking gold at the Camelot store in High Wycombe in August 2009.
No one ever came forward to claim the real winning ticket, which was purchased in Worcester, UK.
The mystery of the missing money
When Judge Gray sentenced Putman in 2019, he also ordered him to pay £939,000 ($1.1 million) for the Camelot fraud.
What remains a mystery is what Botman did with the £3.1 million he was sent to prison for nine months for falsely claiming £13,000 ($16,409) in Housing and Income Support in 2012, just three years after hitting the jackpot.
While Putman is now out of prison, he is no stranger to spending time behind bars, having spent seven years in prison when authorities sentenced him in 1993 for the rape of a pregnant 17-year-old girl.
the Daily Star On Sunday, a friend of the Nibbs family said, Upset by Putman’s early release, As he said: “They never got to the bottom of what he did with the money. “It’s horrific.”
However, a Justice Department spokesperson said criminals, like Putman, “are kept under close supervision.” […] for the remainder of their sentence,” and face returning to prison if they violate the terms of their release.
