SEATTLE — The man from Baghdad showed up unannounced this month in a state office building in Salem, Ore., with a piece of paper in his hand that he said was worth $6.4 million. He politely asked that his name be kept quiet, then told state officials that he had set up a local bank account into which they should deposit money annually. And then he went away, richer and more mysterious than when he arrived.
It was not an ordinary day at the Oregon Lottery.
The story started with small details, lottery officials said, and became bigger from there: The man was 37, an Iraqi Kurd. He had recently arrived in the United States from his home in Baghdad, and he said in fine English that he had won the Oregon Megabucks lottery drawing in late August by possessing the six correct numbers — without ever having visited the state.
The ticket, lottery officials learned, had been bought through
thelotter.com, a company based in the island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, but had been printed out in a little deli on the outskirts of Bend, Ore., called Binky’s.
