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.

Lottery officials’ jaws dropped. Then they picked up the phone, calling the Department of Justice and Interpol. Was the man who he said he was, a successful businessman who had bought his ticket online? Was he on any kind of watch list? And how on earth would a lottery ticket from Binky’s, of all places, end up in the possession of a man from halfway around the world?