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Italian scratch cards (symbol image)
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The airport police in Rome arrested a lottery and tobacco shop owner from Naples on Sunday and thus prevented his flight to the Canary Islands.
The man is suspected of trying to escape with a customer's lottery ticket.
However, the shopkeeper did not have the stolen scratch card worth 500,000 euros with him, reports the LaPresse news agency.
He was released again.
The man had been wanted on suspicion of theft.
He is said to have grabbed the ticket and drove off on his scooter after a customer asked him on Friday to check her winning ticket.
The older woman had previously bought two scratch cards.
One of them turned out to be the main prize.
She asked an employee of the store to confirm the win.
The clerk then passed the card on to the shopkeeper for a final review, according to Italian media reports.
Instead, the owner is said to have taken the card and fled through Naples on his scooter.
Investigators, meanwhile, are still looking for the missing lot.
In order to prevent someone from collecting illegally, the payment of winnings to all card numbers that had been distributed to the tobacco shop in a working-class district of Naples has meanwhile been blocked.
The Italian tax authorities are responsible for the scratch card lottery.
him / AP