In 1997, a crime ring led by Haitian national, Frederick Marzouka, defrauded the lottery by manipulating the drawings, among other irregularities. After fleeing to Haiti, his escape, reportedly facilitated by police assistance, remains a mystery, with his current whereabouts still unknown.


DOMINICAN REPUBLIC


Operation 13 In 2021 the Dominican Republic National Lottery announced that it had carried out an investigation into lottery related fraud initially involving a suspicious draw. Te lottery, headed by Luis Maisichell Dicent, said that it would review as many as 100 draws carried out over the previous 10 years. According to prosecutors, Valentina Rosario pretended during the May 1, 2021 draw to have received the ball number 13 as a jackpot from the hands of the visually impaired Miguel Mejía, who also faked extracting the ball from the drum while she had the ball in her other hand. A month later events took an unexpected turn when Dicent himself was arrested after the Public Ministry accused Dicent of planning and orchestrating the scam. Accusations charged that the fraud caused losses of RD$500m over US$8m. Te Justice Ministry said in a statement that Luis Dicent and


those arrested through Operation 13 had undermined “the dream of Dominicans who trusted that one day luck would touch them and they could benefit from National Lottery prizes.” Prosecutors had wanted the ex-head of the lottery to serve


12 years in jail for his alleged role in the lottery scam. While prosecutors were able to secure eight convictions, due to insufficient evidence, a court issued an acquittal in favour of the former administrator. Te Public Ministry tried again this year to convict Dicent, but this was rejected by an appeals court in March. Tis is not the first time the lottery has been embroiled in a scandal involving rigging. In 1997, a crime ring led by Haitian national, Frederick Marzouka, defrauded the lottery by manipulating the drawings, among other irregularities. After fleeing to Haiti, his escape, reportedly facilitated by police assistance, remains a mystery, with his current whereabouts still unknown.


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