Five people suspected of cheating in lottery prize awarding in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, were arrested on Tuesday with one suspect on the run, said Wu Jinbiao, deputy director of the municipal public security bureau.

During the lottery ticket selling from March 20 to 25, Yang Yongming, contractor of the lottery ticket selling and his employee Sun Chenggui cheated on the four top prizes, each one BMW car and 120,000 yuan (US$14,458), by making marks on lottery tickets and employing Wu Xingfang, Yue Bin, Wang Changli and Liu Xiaoli to falsely claim the top prizes.

The scam was exposed when Liu Liang, a 17-year-old migrant worker from southwestern Sichuan province got one of the four winning tickets which was carelessly placed by Yang on March 23. When he tried to claim the prize however, they claimed the ticket was forged.

Yang Yongming, Sun Chenggui, Yue Bin, Wang Changli and Liu Xiaoli were arrested, but Wu Xingfang escaped, said Wu.

Investigation found Yang and Sun had also cheated in the lottery tickets selling in Yan'an city and Yulin city from January24 to February 6 by employing six people to falsely claim nine Chery cars.

According to Wu, Yang Yongming signed the contract to sell sports lottery tickets with the Shaanxi provincial sports lottery administrative center and the Xi'an municipal sports lottery administrative center on February 17 and March 18 respectively.

Jia Anqing, director of the Shaanxi provincial sports lottery administrative center, and Fan Hong, director of the Xi'an municipal sports lottery administrative center were ordered to resign on May 11.

Further investigation into the lottery scam is underway, said Wu.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2004)