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Grand Prairie clerk accused in $1 million lottery fraud 
12:24 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 21, 2009
GRAND PRAIRIE — State authorities are looking for a Grand Prairie convenience store clerk who allegedly stole a $1 million lottery ticket from a customer.
Pankaj Joshi is accused of lying to the 67-year-old customer who presented the ticket, telling him that he only won $2. Then, Joshi allegedly kept the million dollar ticket for himself and cashed it in at lottery headquarters in Austin.
Investigators believe Joshi — who had worked at the Lucky Food Store at 902 South Great Southwest Parkway for about five years — may have fled the U.S. to return to his home country of Nepal.
Co-workers said Joshi never played the lottery; that's why they got suspicious when he suddenly quit and moved out of the country.
Willis Willis, the man who presented the winning ticket to Joshi on May 31, plays the same numbers all the time, numbers linked to the birthdays of family members.
Willis was unaware that he had been the big winner until he got a call from Lucky Food Store manager Nick Hirani.
"He came down here and I explained what happened with him, and he was shocked," Hirani said. "He didn't believe it when I told him, 'You are the winner of the $1 million ticket we sold.'"
According to an indictment from Travis County, Willis had a Mega Millions Megaplier ticket worth $1,000,008, but the clerk incorrectly told the customer he had won only $2 and sent him on his way.
Joshi took the cash option and transferred $750,006 to several different bank accounts. He then told his co-workers he had to move back to Nepal to help a cousin run a perfume store.
Fellow employees, however, sensed that something was wrong and reported Joshi to the lottery commission.
Lottery officials have managed to recover more than $365,000 of the ill-gotten gains from several of Joshi's bank accounts.
U.S. Marshals are working with law enforcement officials abroad to try and locate Joshi, whose exact whereabouts are unknown. He has been indicted by a Travis County Grand Jury for claiming a lottery prize by fraud, a second degree felony. Bond was set at $10 million.
It has not been determined whether Willis Willis will ever receive the $1 million prize.
E-mail dmiles@wfaa.com
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