Police are seeking help from the public in finding the rightful owner of a winning $12.5-million ticket, after charges were laid against three relatives who police say wrongfully claimed the winnings seven years ago.

Ontario Provincial Police announced charges Wednesday against a father, son and daughter alleged to have bilked a customer out of the multimillion dollar prize.

Although the rightful owner or owners of the winning 2003 ticket would not have known the numbers -- which were 6, 8, 14, 36, 41 and 42 -- police said it is possible that they can be identified.

"We have a very in-depth customer profile that the OLG has assisted us in terms of developing," said OPP Insp. William Price. "It's very specific what this customer did."

That person bought a ticket at a video store in St. Catharines, Ont., called That's Entertainment. He or she then validated it in Burlington, Ont., where police say it won a free play -- which the customer never received.

That free ticket is what won the $12.5-million prize on Boxing Day of 2003.

"The person who played up to that point is the person we need to find," said OPP Commissioner Chris D. Lewis.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation believes the person who bought the ticket was living and working in St. Catharines and Burlington. He or she usually purchased several tickets, leading investigators to believe it was part of a group purchase.

At his own news conference, OLG chairman Paul Godfrey said the Crown corporation's new investigative system -- Data Analysis and Retrieval Technology -- should help the investigation.

"Data research that used to take weeks or months may now take minutes," he said. "That makes DART a powerful tool OLG find, fight and prevent fraud."

Jun-Chul Chung, 60, of Thornhill; Kenneth Chung, 28, also of Thornhill; and Kathleen Chung, 29, of Oakville, are all charged with:

• fraud over $5,000
• possession under $5,000
• possession over $5,000 (proceeds of crime)
• money laundering

Jun-Chul and Kenneth Chung are also charged with three counts each of theft under $5,000 and two counts each of possession under $5,000.

At a news conference in Toronto, the OPP said charges against the three accused were the result of a lengthy investigation into an offence that allegedly happened in 2003.

According to police, the father and son were both working at a lottery retail location in Burlington, where they are accused of taking lottery tickets from customers.

According to an OPP statement, the two men "provided the winning ticket to a female family member to claim, in an attempt to conceal their association between their criminal activity and the lottery retail location."

The media was never notified about the lottery win, as per OLG policy. Officials are now trying to determine why corporate protocol was not followed.

The OPP said they have executed search warrants and seized $10 million in assets from the three individuals, including five high-end cars, three commercial properties and two homes.

The three accused have been granted bail and are scheduled to appear in a Milton, Ont., courtroom on Oct. 27.

Previous case

Three years ago, the Ontario government asked police to investigate the OLG after its ombudsman accused the lottery-ticket retailers of inappropriately pocketing tens of millions of dollars.

The probe led to the arrest of a Toronto convenience store owner who was sentenced to a year in jail earlier this year. Hafiz Malik pleaded guilty to scamming a customer out of a lottery ticket worth $5.7 million in 2004.

Since the probe, the Crown Corporation has been under fire for questionable insider wins, irregular scratch-lotto payouts and lawsuits from gambling addicts and out of control spending.

Kelly McDougald was fired as CEO last August and the board of governors was replaced.

In 2009, The Canadian Press reported that the rules were being changed, and that Ontario retailers who sell lottery tickets would no longer be able to claim prizes on tickets purchased in their own stores.

The latest instance of alleged wrongdoing prompted Premier Dalton McGuinty to defend the province's lotteries system.

"It's become a very important mechanism for us to bring money into our schools, into our hospitals," he told reporters. "And we want to make sure that when people buy that ticket, that the system is very fair."

OLG makes about $6.5 billion in revenue each year.

With reports from CTV Toronto's John Musselman and Paul Bliss, and files from The Canadian Press