On February 15, 2001, a federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned an indictment against Jacques Tanguay, Christina Tanguay, Donna Mata, and Wilfred Veyt on wire fraud charges, including the sentencing enhancement for telemarketing fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 2326.3 

Jacques and Christina Tanguay allegedly owned and operated a British Columbia-based lottery operation called, at various times, Global Dividends International, Horizon 2000 Investments International, and Platinum International which during the course of the scheme, which ran from about November 1997 to May 2000, they induced elderly victims to send them more than $2.7 million.

Mata and Veyt allegedly managed and were telemarketers in the operation. 

Big Losers International

11/00 - The FTC won a $19.7 million judgment against Toronto-based Canadian boiler room telemarketers charged with operating an illegal international lottery scam which used high pressure tactics to persuade consumers to send anywhere from $29 to thousands of dollars.

They told consumers - most of whom were elderly - that they had been "specially selected" to participate in a system for playing the Canadian lottery and that they were likely to win a large prize or jackpot. 

The telemarketers told the consumers that they were "registered" or "sponsored" by the Canadian Government to sell the lottery tickets, but failed to disclose that it was illegal to sell them to U. S. consumers though in fact, only a small percent of the money the telemarketers took in actually went toward the purchase of lottery tickets.

The defendants named in the FTC suit are Windermere Big Win International, Inc., Marathon Award Center, Inc., Sunshine Fortuity, Inc., Ernest Levy, a/k/a Ernie Levy, Alan Silverstein, Selvanayagam Pararajasingam, Michael Levy, and George Ola. 

Consumers who believe they invested in foreign lotteries through one of the named defendants may apply for redress by contacting the FTC at 1-877-FTC-HELP.

How did I deal with my grandfather? He was irate that I dared question this person. So, I sat down and told him that I totally supported his playing lotteries (I lied), and that I wanted him to continue...all I wanted to do was look at the material, note a couple of things to make some enquiries, but that it was really nothing as I was sure he was right.