Recently, the police has established that the number of e-mails containing false information has once again increased.

Senders notify individuals by e-mail that they have won a prize of a few thousand to a few million Euros in what they call an international lottery (for example, UK National Online Email Lottery 2009, Euro Millions Lottery International, etc.) However, the prize can supposedly only be paid out after the recipient has sent the sender a specific amount of money (from a few hundred to a thousand euros), which is described as negligible in comparison to the prize.

We wish to warn the public that in these cases, there is no game of chance involved.

The winner has, prior to the receipt of the e-mail, not bought a ticket or entered the game in any other way.

In these cases, there is reason to suspect the criminal offence of fraud and abuse of the term lottery. The senders usually like to refer to lotteries because in general people trust lottery organisations and the games they organise (e.g. Euro Millions).

In addition to these e-mails, "Nigerian letters" and other letters, in which the sender asks the recipient for help in a financial transaction, promising them a certain percentage of the money, are still in circulation. These have already been proven to be fraudulent.

The police thus offers the following advice to all recipients of such e-mails:

• Do not fall for these promises and send money to people you do not know.

• Do not send personal and financial details to people you do not know.

• Find out first if the game of chance in question is legal in the country from which the e-mail comes.