Man wins almost £1,000,000 using 600 aliases

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http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article...ases/article.do

A house, 33 cars and 20 trips to Tenerife ... Amazing £1m contest bonanza of man with 600 aliases

Last updated at 17:56pm on 22.05.08

A man won almost a £1 million in competitions run by magazines, radio stations and supermarkets – by entering under as many as 600 different identities.

Police officer Yvon Bouvy, 54, won a fully-furnished house, 33 new cars, lorry-loads of electrical goods, and hundreds of holidays to luxury hotels worldwide during a 10-year period.

The officer, of Arlon in southern Belgium, spent all his free time in the local reference library looking up the answers to quiz questions or filling in entry forms.

To get round the rules banning multiple entries per person, he used his friends' names and addresses in exchange for a 10 per cent cut of his winnings.

"I had 600 different names to maximise my chances of winning," he said. "It was a full-time job filling in all the forms because I had to disguise my handwriting. and use different pens.

"The biggest moment in my career was when I spent £2,000 buying up copies of a magazine to get the entry forms for a contest for a house, two cars, three time-share apartments and 20 holiday trips to Tenerife.

"The investment was a lot of money - but it paid off as I won every single prize on offer - in different names, of course. I sold off the cars and holidays, but I kept the house and still live in it.

"I remember another supermarket competition where I bought 25,000 cans of Coca-Cola in order to get 1,000 entry forms.

"That was worth it as well as I won a Volkswagen Passat and two VW Golfs.

"Afterwards I sold the Coca-Cola at knock-down prices to some chip shops and I sold the cars back to the showroom. I always did the same with all the big prizes."

Now PC Bouvy has given up his lucrative hobby because of a change in the Belgian law which forces the organisers of competitions to choose the winners by a draw.

"It's not worth all the trouble any more," said PC Bouvy.