Overview
- The Audiencia Provincial de A Coruña convicted Manuel Reija of aggravated fraud and sentenced him to three years and six months in prison, in a ruling issued on Thursday, June 11, 2026.
- Judges concluded Reija created a 'false certainty' that the 2012 Primitiva ticket had no prize so he could keep it, a finding that moved the case from simple theft to fraud.
- The court ordered Reija and the state lottery operator SELAE to pay €4,722,337.75 jointly and solidarily, and that exact sum has been consigned to the court's account.
- The ruling recognised the ticket's owner as a man who died in 2014, so the right to the prize belongs to his estate and will be distributed under inheritance law rather than handed directly to his widow or daughter.
- Reija was barred from working in lottery-related jobs for the length of the sentence, his brother Miguel was acquitted, and the decision can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.