Completely unaware

A gas station employee in Murfreesboro, Tennessee stole a $1m winning lottery ticket from a customer and at the time, that customer was none the wiser.

Meet Patel was working behind the counter when a man came in and bought two $20 Diamond and Gold scratch-off tickets. The customer didn’t want to spend the time to scratch off the tickets, so he just revealed the barcodes and asked Patel to scan them to see if they were winners.

He put that one into the trash after telling the customer that it was a loser.

The 23-year-old gas station worker found that one of the tickets was a $40 win and issued the cash to the person before realizing that the second ticket was a $1m winner. He put that one into the trash after telling the customer that it was a loser.

Raising red flags

Patel went to collect the winnings in person from the lottery headquarters in Nashville, which is required for prizes worth more than $200,000. Staff members were suspicious after asking a number of standard questions and told Patel to come back at a later time after getting his affairs in order. The lottery held onto the ticket and began investigating the circumstances of the win.

After going through surveillance footage, the Tennessee Lottery saw Patel take the ticket out of the garbage and put it into his pocket. The video shows him celebrating when he eventually scratched off the winning numbers.

A good outcome

The probe ultimately uncovered the crime, leading to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office charging Patel with theft of over $250,000. He will have an initial court hearing next month.

can carry a prison sentence of between 15 and 60 years

Patel remains in Rutherford County Jail on $100,000 bond for the Class A felony charge, an offense that can carry a prison sentence of between 15 and 60 years.

The authorities managed to track down the rightful winner, who was unaware that he had this life-changing win and was initially skeptical that he actually won the $1m prize.