Lottery: Chef wins big and vanishes

A Kaohsiung chef -- who asked not to be identified -- yesterday became one of the winners of the Lotto lottery. He split the prize with six other winners and claimed NT$120 million of the total NT$750 million. This was the 56th issue of the Lotto lottery and it has turned out to be the biggest in Taiwanese Lotto history. The chef works in a hot-pot restaurant in Kaohsiung. He was preparing food in the restaurant kitchen when he saw on the TV that his lottery ticket's numbers were the lucky numbers. It was reported that he first shook hands with every customer in the restaurant and then asked for leave, telling his superior that he was sick. His friends say that they tried to congratulate him over the phone after hearing the news, but nobody answered the phone. They discovered latter that he had quit his job and had moved elsewhere overnight. His friends say that they only know he came from the middle part of the country. His neighbors say that he was working as a chef because he needed money to get married. He had bought his ticket with randomized numbers picked by the computer.