Stolen lottery tickets net suspect nearly $3,000, Columbus police say

Kelby Hutchison
·1 min read

Columbus Police are asking for help identifying a suspect involved in redeeming stolen lottery tickets from a March 8 robbery of Veterans Grocery.

The suspect redeemed the winning stolen tickets at six different stores for approximately $3,000, according to Sgt. Jane Edenfield of the Columbus Police Department.

During the commission of the robbery approximately 70-80 different lottery tickets were stolen along with cash, said Edenfield.

She said she’s seen multiple instances of people stealing lottery tickets during robberies. Edenfield said CPD works with the Georgia Department of Revenue that runs the lottery in order to verify stolen tickets.

The GDR is able to trace stolen tickets through the serial-number-like coding on each ticket which allows the GDR to know which store each ticket came from.