Clerk Allegedly Stole Customer's $1M Lottery Ticket

A Tennessee man went to a Murfreesboro Shell station to buy some lottery tickets and have them scanned, and police say that instead of informing the customer one of his tickets was a $1 million winner, the clerk took the opportunity to nab it for himself. Meet Patel is accused of throwing the supposed "losing" ticket away and returning only the second ticket, which was a $40 winner, to the man. Later, he was allegedly caught on surveillance video retrieving the $1 million ticket from the trash and putting it in his pocket, News Channel 5 reports. But when he went to the Tennessee Lottery Commission headquarters to claim the jackpot, lottery officials were suspicious, CNN reports.

Part of the vetting process for big winners includes a review of surveillance video showing the ticket purchase, and in this case, a detective says it was "pretty obvious" from the video what had happened. Patel was arrested on felony theft charges and remains behind bars. As for the customer—who'd only scratched off the barcode so the tickets could be scanned, in an attempt to save time, rather than scratching off more to see if he was a winner—he didn't realize what had happened until authorities contacted him to explain about the allegedly stolen ticket. (More weird crimes stories.)