THREE ARRESTED AFTER DEPUTIES ARE ALERTED TO LOTTERY SCAM.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - An alert bank teller in Lancaster saved a customer from a $25,000 lottery scam, officials said.

When 70-year-old Gilbert Polaco told a Washington Mutual Bank teller he needed to withdraw $25,000 cash to buy a winning lottery ticket from an illegal immigrant, the bank teller, sensing trouble, alerted the Sheriff's Department.

Sheriff's deputies staked out the shopping center where Polaco was to meet the man with the ticket and a woman who purportedly were going to split the ticket with Polaco. The man and the woman were arrested, along with a third person allegedly in on the plot.

``This is a common scam that we've seen up here before,'' said Deputy Bobby Rush. ``If it had not been for the bank teller and bank manager, we would have had another victim.''

While shopping at the Wal-mart store on Avenue K in Lancaster, Polaco was approached by a man later identified as Justino Muchado, 54, of Palmdale, deputies said.

Muchado told him that he had a winning Fantasy 5 lottery ticket worth $136,000, but could not claim his winnings because he was an illegal immigrant. He showed him the ticket and a printout of the winning numbers - actually a doctored printout, deputies said.

As Muchado told Polaco the story, a woman, later identified as Pricilla Baldarama, 25, of Azusa, walked past and Muchado asked the woman if she spoke Spanish. He began talking to her in Spanish as if she were a stranger and said he would sell the pair the ticket for $25,000 each.

Rush explained that con artists frequently use an accomplice to help fool their intended victim.

``They generally plant a second person in the mix that acts as a stranger so the victim doesn't feel like a target or alone,'' explained Rush.

Pretending that she was calling the State Lottery Commission to verify the claim, Baldarama placed a call to a person later identified as Romulo Urbina, 72, deputies said.

Agreeing to buy the ticket and split the winnings, Polaco told Baldarama that he would meet her at a nearby Staples store after withdrawing his money, then meet Muchado at the McDonald's inside Wal-mart to purchase the ticket.

After being alerted of the potential scam by the bank teller, deputies set up a containment area around the Wal-mart and Staples stores. They talked to Polaco by phone before he left the bank, but he refused any help, saying he knew what he was doing, deputies said.

Three plainclothes deputies followed Polaco to the Staples parking lot, where they arrested Baldarama and Urbina. Three large stacks of one dollar bills with hundred dollar bills on top and bottom were confiscated, authorities said.

Deputies then arrested Muchado in front of the Wal-mart store and verified that the ticket was not a winner.

All three arrested were being held at the Lancaster station in lieu of $1 million bail on charges of attempted grand theft.