Unusual robbery in Italy: a pensioner won 500 thousand euros with a scratch and the agent escaped with the ticket

Julio Algañaraz

09/05/2021 1:46 PM

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 09/05/2021 1:48 PM

A unique case: an old woman won

500 thousand euros

by playing a scratch card, but the seller

escaped with the ticket

of a great lottery business in Naples.

Now he is wanted by the Italian police.

The fact arouses surprise and social condemnation from the Neapolitans, who live in one that cultivates lotteries like few others.

The woman, who plays the "lotto" numbers almost every day, had bought a

"gratta e vince"

ticket

, which would translate to "scratch and win".

The play is covered and you have to scratch with a coin or your fingernail to see it.

In Italy it has

millions of followers

.

It is extremely difficult to win the first prize.

But the old woman succeeded.

To the surprise, he went to the business he frequents in the Stella (Estrella) neighborhood, a large tobacco shop, to confirm that if he won half a million, the maximum prize.

The Neapolitans live between surprise and indignation the theft of the winning ticket from the retired woman.

A young employee verified the bill with the optical reader and then handed it to one of the business owners, who thought for a moment and, after putting the play in his pocket,

escaped grabbing the helmet and climbing into the street to his "Motorino" with whom he fled

.

The police arrived immediately and the search for the man began.

Many neighbors gathered around the tobacco shop.

These things never happen in lotteries.

The number was immediately blocked.

A woman defined what happened well.

"He gave a

di golpo testa

, " a 'hit head', as you call

a moment of irrationality absurd

because the improvised thief can never collect that bill.

So far the man does not appear.

Naples comments between amused and angry the event.

Every day there are

robberies on the streets, burglaries and many other crimes

.

But never of this kind.

"These things are not done," say the neighbors.

The businesses that sell lotteries enjoy

an armored prestige

, among other things because the biggest prizes are paid directly by the official Italian body that manages these games.

In Argentina, many inherited the passion for lotteries from Neapolitan immigrants.

Until a few years ago on the radio you could listen to

a program

in Buenos Aires

that gave the keys to "smorfia"

, the Freudian interpretation of dreams.

Dreaming numbers was important for luck and each number had its symbol.

The most famous are 15, the pretty girl;

47, death and 48 il morto che parla.

The funny thing is that the lottery was

not born in Naples but in Genoa, in 1617

.

But the soul of this game was what the Neapolitans forever harbored.

DD

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