Alleged lotto thieves arrested in New York

It’s a sad tale, told all too often; a lucky punter wins a big lottery prize and entrusts the machine-checking of his ticket to a store clerk. The store clerk tells the punter that he has won substantially less than the true win, pays him out and then tries to claim the big win on the ticket for himself.

It happened again this week in a Long Island, New York convenience store where store owner Nabil Jaghab (57) and his twenty-six-year-old son Karim now face prosecution on grand larceny charges.

The Reuters news agency reports that an unnamed 34-year-old Hispanic man bought a $10 “Unwrap The Cash” scratch-off game at the Peninsula Deli & Grocery in Hempstead, New York, and after playing the game, believed he was a winner.

He handed the card to the younger Jaghab for scanning, and was told that he had won $1,000 which he was paid after handing in the card.

In reality, the scanning machine had told Jaghab: “File Claim: Jackpot Winner – Please Return Original Ticket To The Customer Along With A Claim Receipt.”

A police statement later revealed:

“The victim then left the store with his believed winnings. The winning ticket was in fact a ‘Jackpot Prize’ for $1,000,000.”

Matters started to become complicated for the Jaghabs when the winner became suspicious and returned to the store on the following day. He was told by the Jaghabs that they had made an error, and that he had in fact won $10,000 which they promised to pay as long as the customer did not involve the police.

The convenience store owner’s greed was his undoing; now thoroughly alarmed and convinced he had been ripped off, the customer reported the matter to the police, and detectives soon established that the convenience store duo had attempted to deceive the victim and claim the million dollar prize for themselves.

Father and son were arraigned on grand larceny charges Saturday, protesting that the incident was a “simple mistake” on a lottery machine payout.