> The ticket Tipton has been accused of buying went unclaimed for almost a year, until Hexham Investments Trust, a mysterious company incorporated in Belize, tried to claim the prize through Crawford Shaw, a New York attorney, hours before the ticket was set to expire in 2011.
> Lottery officials refused to release the prize because those behind the trust declined to give their identities, which is required under Iowa law. Shaw asked officials whether Hexham Investments could claim the money and then turn it over to the state to be given out for charity. Lottery officials rejected the offer and said the prize winner must accept and distribute the funds.
> Shaw withdrew the claim to the prize in January 2012. At that time, Iowa Lottery officials asked the Iowa Attorney General's Office and Iowa DCI to investigate.
They don't hand $14m out without making sure the buyer is legit - - and an attorney claiming it on a behalf of a foreign company is definitely worthy of investigation.
It seems like this type of scheme is really, really hard to pull off because of financial records retention requirements. No matter what you do, the money trail will catch up with you. Unless you're a drug cartel laundering billions through HSBC. Then you get away with it because the scale is so audacious, the justice system doesn't have any way to deal with it without taking down the global financial system.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/04/11/prose...
Essentially, the strange circumstances of the claim for the winnings was investigated, and that trail led to enough suspicion that they tracked down the surveillance video of the ticket purchase. They released the video publicly to help identify the purchaser and were subsequently pointed to Tipton.
I highly doubt that info is forthcoming though, unless the state is forced to disclose it at trial. Gov probably doesn't want to give away its secrets.
Also, can't help but wonder if the guy would have gotten away with it had recruited someone else. Buying the ticket himself was a stupid idea if true, since the ticket can be traced to the machine it was purchased on and at what instant, so it's trivial to ask for the store surveillance footage. And having a company incorporated Belize claim the ticket at the last second would also raise eyebrows. But if he had recruited a trustworthy accomplice with no immediate connections, it would have been just another person claiming a prize.