Family who won $1 million lottery in Mexico faces threats from gangs

Parents in southern Mexico say a gang threatened them after they won a nursery lottery worth 20 million pesos ($950,000). The crèche has just over two dozen students, and their parents have been in charge of administering the prize.

A large number of 500-peso tickets in Mexico's much-publicized "aeroplane lottery" was purchased by anonymous beneficiaries and donated to poor schools and crèches across the country.

Shortly after their victory was made public, they received threats from an armed group demanding that they need the money to buy weapons for their gang members.

The families say they had to flee their village and lived rough.

A number of the 500-peso tickets in Mexico's much-publicized "aeroplane lottery" were purchased by anonymous beneficiaries and donated to poor schools and crèches across the country.

The Mexican state organized the lottery after an earlier plan to dismantle the presidential plane to raise funds for hospital supplies was rejected because it was considered impractical.

A list of the 100 winners was announced in September 2020 and published in Mexican newspapers.

The small crèche in the native village of Ocosingo was among the winners.

While the windfall was first fire, the problems started soon after its news spread.

Members of the parents' association say they have begun receiving threats from an armed group called Los Petules, who have demanded that the prize money be used to buy weapons for the gangs who were planning to form a rival group in a neighbouring village to attack.

Instead, the parents refused and spent part of the money on a new roof for the crèche.

The dangers escalated this year when parents decided to use the remaining 14m pesos to improve their village.

In March, a man was killed by gang members who demanded that he hand over the prize money.

Last month, the situation continued to escalate as gangs reportedly attacked women and children in the village, forcing 28 families to flee.

A member of the parents' association said that the community had lost "cattle, our houses, refrigerators, our corn and bean crops, our chickens".

A spokesman for the families stated they had alerted local authorities to their plight but that they would not be able to return to their homes unless the gang was disarmed and disbanded.