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A former convenience store manager in Edmonton has been charged in an alleged half-million-dollar lottery fraud that was carried out over the course of a year.

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Police said the accused was a store manager for a national convenience store chain when the scheme was carried out between September 2012 and September 2013.

It’s alleged he manipulated the store’s accounting system for lottery payouts that totalled $524,000.

“The accused was allegedly paying out non-existent lottery tickets to himself until the fraud was discovered and he was terminated from his job,” Economic Crimes Section Det. Jerry Sobchyshyn said.

The employer reported the fraud to police in October 2013, but charges were only laid this week.

“Just due to the volume of files we have here, we didn’t get to it right away so it sat for a while before we are able to work with it,” Sobchyshyn explained. “And then we had to get a lot of document actually, to show what what he’d actually done.”

READ MORE: Top 10 scams of 2016 reveal Canadians lost more than $90M last year

Hassan Karim Choudhry, 31, is charged with fraud over $5,000.

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