New York, July 26 (IANS) An Indian-origin man has been charged with stealing a $1 million-winning lottery ticket from the buyer at the petrol bunk he was working in, according to local officials.
Meer Patel, 23, was arrested and charged with the theft on Monday and the buyer of the ticket was notified of his winning, Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said.
The alleged theft had taken place in the petrol bunk in Murfreesboro in Tennesee state where Patel was employed.
When the man who bought the ticket asked him to check if the ticket had won anything by scanning it, he allegedly said it had won a lower amount, which he paid the customer and threw in the trash, according to Detective Steve Craig quoted by Cheatham County Exchange newspaper.
After the man left the store, Patel picked it out of the trash, scratched the hidden part to find the winning amount on the ticket, and took it to the lottery office, where the staff became suspicious, the publication said quoting officials.
Investigators from the state lottery seized the videos in the petrol bunk’s cameras which showed him picking the ticket out of the trash and “celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner,” Investigator Vic Donoho, told the publication.
The Sheriff’s Office was informed and Patel was arrested.
Meanwhile, Craig and Donoho went through the store videos to identify the buyer and informed him of his luck.
“The feel-good side of this story is the (the man) never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him,” Craig told the publication.
“That is absolutely life-changing money.”
(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)
