Man arrested after allegedly stealing his roommate's £8M lottery scratchcard

Police in California have arrested a man who allegedly tried to claim his roommate's lottery jackpot by leaving his co-habitee with a forged ticket.

The true winner initially thought his lottery scratchcard, bought at a shop in Vacaville last December, was worth $10,000 (£8,000).

The man shared his happy news with his two roommates, but the following day, when he went to collect his money, he was told the ticket was not a winner and had been tampered with.

"And we had a discussion with him because he said, 'No, I won. I saw I won $10,000 in this game,' and he kind of told us some stuff," said Russ Lopez of California Lottery.

According to local police, the lottery winner came to them and reported that he suspected one of his roommates to have stolen the winning ticket.

Anf the very next day one of those room-mates, Adul Saosongyang, attempted to cash in the original ticket. At that point, it also became clear that the scratchcard wasn't worth $10,000 but instead $10 million (£8million)!

All lottery wins over $600 dollars are checked out by lottery staff and when they learned of the suspected theft the investigators joined forcers with the police. Together, they found that Saosongyang had allegedly purchased a similar ticket to his roommate's, altered it and swapped it for the winning ticket.

The alleged forgery even had the wrong winning amount listed: $10,000 instead of $10 million.

The police then set up a sting. Saosongyang was told he could collect the winnings, but when he arrived he was instead arrested on suspicion of grand theft.