Mystery of the winning lottery ticket cashed after owner's death

THE LOTTERY ticket bought by a man in north-western Spain who died before he could claim his pounds 20,000 prize has been cashed, but no one knows by whom.

This bombshell has torpedoed efforts by relatives of Juan Villasante to exhume his body in the belief that he carried the ticket to his grave after his fatal heart attack on the day of the draw. Efforts are now being focused upon tracking down the culprit who intercepted the ticket and cheated Villasante's family of their lifelong dream.

The relatives scoured his house from top to bottom once they knew he held a winning ticket, and set the police on to the undertakers whom they accused of rifling the dead man's clothing. Now they conclude that someone must have taken the ticket from Villasante's pocket before he was buried.

The old man, a bachelor of 76, collapsed in the street early on 26 January and was taken to the local hospital of the Galician fishing village of Pobra do Caraminal, where he died. His body was laid out by local undertakers who handed over the dead man's effects - sans ticket - to his next of kin.

The family's lawyer, Manuel Quintans, reckons the ticket could have been cashed before news of Villasante's death was made public - a week after the event. Or afterwards, by unknown intermediaries.

Or, as has happened before in this part of the country, the prize-winning ticket could have been bought by an organisation devoted to laundering the proceeds of drug-trafficking.

The next step is to find out what happened by talking to the lottery's organisers, Spain's organisation for the blind, the ONCE, and the bank where the winning ticket was cashed, and to whom the money was handed. "It's possible that the person gave a false identity, but there are ways of finding out who it really is," Mr Quintans said.

The eventual beneficiaries will be Villasante's nephew Jaime, a former building worker who receives pounds 150 a month invalidity pension since falling from a ladder, and his wife Maria Antonia, who works as a cleaner in six houses for two pounds an hour.

The couple have three daughters: the eldest is suing her estranged husband for payments towards the upbringing of their son; one daughter is still at school, and the third contributes to the family her wages as a factory hand in a fish-cannery.