Special Agent Richard Dent pursued this case. Someone informed them that a person is rigging McDonald’s monopoly promotion, stealing the monopoly pieces and selling them. In 2000, the FBI received an anonymous tip-off. Jerry Jacobson made $24 million in this fraud.īut, of course, this had to end somewhere. This is how this whole McMillions monopoly scheme continued between 19. To avoid suspicion, these “others” would lie about being from different parts of the country. He would take the high-value monopoly piece and give it to others. Over the years, he expanded his fraud by adding more conspirators in the plan and making moves on bigger amounts.ĭuring delivery of the package to the factory of McDonald’s, Jacobson would go to airport bathrooms, remove the original seal of the envelope, swap the winning pieces for regular ones, secure back the envelope with a newer seal, and make the final delivery. For instance, he gave his local butcher a stolen piece worth $10,000 the butcher paid him $2,000. He started giving the prize-winning monopoly pieces to people he knew for commission. Clearly, he had a lot of power here, and he certainly started exploiting them. He would lock them in a vault, seal them up, and carry them to the factory to hide these pieces in McDonald’s packaging. Jacobson was responsible to watch the high-value winning monopoly pieces of McDonald’s get printed. From there he eventually landed a job at Dittler Brothers, the company that McDonald’s and Simon Marketing hired to make monopoly pieces. Jerry Jacobson was a police officer in Hollywood, Fla.
![mcdonald’s monopoly incident mcdonald’s monopoly incident](https://boston.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3859903/2017/11/affleck.jpg)
Sadly, the person who was responsible to take this high-value monopoly piece was Jerry Jacobson, the mastermind behind McMillions monopoly scheme.
#Mcdonald’s monopoly incident mac#
After printing and safekeeping, these pieces used to be taken to MacDonald's factory and placed randomly on a soda cup and Big Mac package. Dittler Brothers took many stringent measures to ensure complete privacy/safety to these pieces. Now McDonald’s and Simon Marketing hired Dittler Brothers printing to make these monopoly pieces that would contain big cash prizes. These monopoly properties could later be redeemed for prizes, from vacations to millions of dollars.
![mcdonald’s monopoly incident mcdonald’s monopoly incident](https://www.nationalworld.com/jpim-static/image/2021/08/24/15/mcdonalds.jpg)
The game was simple – people would have to collect tiny peel-off pieces that were found on the packaging of menu items and print ads of McDonald’s. So basically, McDonald’s started a contest (monopoly promotion) in 1987 with help from Simon Marketing, which designed the entire promotion. Now coming to what exactly is McDonald’s monopoly fraud or McMillions monopoly scheme, as it is known today.