Police will bring Shenzhen's welfare lottery's computer system under close monitoring in the wake of a multi-million yuan lottery ticket fraud, Wang Jian, the lottery's director, said in an interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily.

Police in South China's city of Shenzhen reported on July 8 that a software engineer surnamed Cheng had made use of a colaboration chance with the lottery center to invade the computer sales system with a Trojan virus. He manipulated the June 9th lottery tickets to fabricate five winning tickets worth 33.05 million yuan, or about 4.84 million US dollars.

Although police detained the engineer on June 12, public concern remained over the lottery's credibility.

Wang told the Southern Metropolis Daily that the staff member on duty at the center had been dismissed for his irresponsible reporting of the abnormal winning tickets further to their upper authorities even after the computer sales system became virus-manipulated.

Wang also said that Cheng forged the ticket data after finding out the winning numbers from TV or the internet in advance.

When asked how the center's security could be improved, Wang said that the center's computer system will be closely scrutinized by the public security department and the center's staff will be reevaluated.

(CRI July 15, 2009)