By Mickey Ferry

A local woman has urged the public to be on the look out for a bogus letter in the mail, which is claiming that the recipient has won one million Euros in the Spanish Lottery.

The woman, who did not wished to be named, and her husband, became aware of the mail scam last week when a friend of theirs received such a letter.

"Our friend knew it was a scam, having not even taken part in the Spanish Lotto" she said.

"He was worried that some people might be taken in by it and my husband took the letter to have a look at it.

"The sender has a doctor's name, and aside from telling the recipient that they are now one million Euros richer, they are also looking for personal details, bank information and stuff like that.

We told our friend to ignore the letter and it was duly torn up."

Over the past week there has been two more local cases of people receiving similar letters, according to the woman, and she has urged the public to be on the look out.

"Two more people have received letters this week, so it's obviously an ongoing scam," she said.

"If anyone gets such a letter through the post, or knows someone who has, please do not reply or give any personal details that are being asked for, especially bank or credit card details.

"Whoever is sending these letters obviously hopes to take advantage of someone and make a profit from it."

Over the past number of years, letters declaring big wins in the Spanish Lottery have been on the increase.

The scams have reached such a height that there is now a statement on the official website of the Spanish Lottery relating to the issue.

It says, "Loterías y Apuestas de Estado (LAE) would like to inform the general public that a number of groups of criminals of various nationalities are using the prestige and the commercial names of the Spanish Lottery by fraudulent means in several countries.

"They move easily around the whole world and use mobile telephones, PO boxes, provisional or false addresses (including real addresses of official Spanish organisations), as well as names that bring to mind prestigious institutions ("el Gordo", la Primitiva", "European Lottery Commission", etc.)

They also forge the printed sheets and signatures of various banks or insurance firms."

"In order to carry out the fraud, the procedure that is generally followed consists of informing the potential victim that they have been the lucky winner of a substantial prize (even if they have not participated in any draw).

Although they cannot collect this prize until they have paid an amount going towards the taxes, bank costs, delivery costs or insurance processing, etc.

"Usually, the fraudster warns their potential victim that the deadline to pay these charges is very soon and that their right to collect the prize is about to expire."