Indian-origin-family in US returns $1mn winning ticket to woman who discarded it

In the US State of Massachusetts, a woman failed to benefit from her shot at USD 1 million but in due course of luck got another fortunate chance. The second chance was courtesy of an Indian-origin family who returned the discarded lottery ticket to their long-time customer, accounting for praiseworthy honesty. 

Lea Rose Fiega, the winner bought a Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket from Lucky Store, a store owned by the Indian-origin family in Southwick in March. 

"I was in a hurry, on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it, and it didn't look like a winner, so I handed it over to them to throw away," Ms Fiega said on Monday.

"I was a millionaire for a night"

However, the ticket sat in pile for ten days while it was not fully scratched off until the son of the store owners Abhi Shah noticed the unfinished USD 30 ticket in the trash, the New York Post reported. 

"One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and [noticed] that she didn't scratch the number. I scratched the number and it was USD 1 million underneath the ticket," Mr Abhi was quoted as saying by the local TV station."

"I was a millionaire for a night," he joked.

Candidly expressing his take on the fold of events, Abhi shared he initially thought of buying a Tesla car only to decide to return the lottery ticket to their regular customer Lea Rose Fiega. Clearly, it was not an easy decision to make

"I mean I had USD 1 million in my hand and on the other hand I wanted to do something good. We didn't sleep two nights," said Maunish Shah, owner of Lucky Spot. He also informed,"He (Abhi) called my mom, his grandparents in India, they said, 'Give it back, we don't want that money,''

 The lottery winner informed that the younger Shah found her at work and told his parents he wanted to see her. Since she was a customer who visited the store often, they knew how to find her. 

“I said ‘I’m working,’ and he said ‘no you have to come over’. So, I went over there and that’s when they told me. I was in total disbelief. I cried, I hugged them," Fiega said.

The other customers of the store however are not taken aback that the Shahs did the right thing. 

“They’re just purely good people. You can tell by just talking to them," one customer was quoted as saying by WBZ TV, a CBS-owned-and-operated television station licensed to Boston, Massachusetts.

Showcasing no remorse, rather proud of his own act, Abhi said, “If I had kept that million, I wouldn’t have been this famous. So, I’m glad I gave it back,"