Two years ago, an Indian-origin man named Mir Patel was at the center of a major lottery fraud case in Tennessee when he was accused of trying to claim a $1 million winning scratch card that belonged to someone else.Patel, who was 23 at the time, was arrested for theft of more than $250,000 after stealing a winning lottery ticket from a customer at a gas station where he worked in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.The customer had purchased two Diamond and Gold scratch-off tickets at a Shell petrol station. Instead of scanning the tickets himself, the man simply revealed the barcode and asked Patel to scan them to see if they were winners. Police said one ticket had a $40 prize, which Patel paid the customer. However, the second ticket was worth $1 million.Patel falsely told the customer that the ticket was not a winning ticket and threw it in the trash. The customer left the store believing he had no more winnings.What happened next was captured on store surveillance footage.“Store video obtained by Tennessee Lottery investigators Vic Donohoe and Greg Heyman shows the clerk allegedly taking out the trash, taking out the winning ticket and placing it in his pocket,” the sheriff’s office said.Patel later scratched the front of the ticket to reveal the prize money and realized he had a million dollar winner.Detective Dennis Ward said, “The video later shows Mr. Patel scratching off the front of the ticket and celebrating in the store after learning it was a $1 million winner.”Investigators also reviewed footage that showed Patel scanning the tickets, discarding the winning ticket and later retrieving it after the customer left.Police said Patel traveled to Tennessee Lottery headquarters in Nashville to claim the prize. Under lottery rules, any prize valued at $200,000 or more must be claimed in person at the organization’s headquarters.However, lottery officials immediately became suspicious.“He went to the Tennessee Lottery Commission to claim the ticket as his and during their general questioning they found enough red flags to say, ‘Hey, you need to get all your affairs in order and come back to us and we’ll keep the ticket,'” Lt. Date. Steve Craig told WTVF. This made it “pretty clear” what Patel had done.Concerns raised by lottery employees led to an investigation. Tennessee Lottery investigators obtained surveillance footage from the petrol station and shared their findings with law enforcement officials.Patel was arrested on July 22, 2024 and charged with theft over $250,000. He was later held on $100,000 bond at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center while awaiting a court appearance.Meanwhile, detectives try to find the customer who inadvertently walked away with the life-changing jackpot. After reviewing the store footage, they were able to locate him and inform him that he was in fact the rightful owner of the winning ticket.Craig said, “The bright side of this story is that he (the man) never knew he was the winner until we contacted him.” “That’s absolutely life-changing money.”According to investigators, the man was shocked and grateful when he learned that he had become a millionaire.