Published: July 7, 2020
Since 1987, McDonald’s has rewarded dozens of winners in its promotional game Monopoly in the United States. Customers could get a drink for free, but also a car or a major prize of $ 1 million. These were not always real winners. Former police officer Jerome Jacobson devised a system according to which his “white horses” were selected as winners. To do this, it was necessary to provide fictional addresses and fake tickets. It paid off. The former police officer managed to rob McDonald’s of more than $ 24 million. The case describes a six-part case an HBO document called McMillions.
The series did not begin until 2001, when Doug Mathews, a young and enthusiastic FBI officer, hit a bomb. The note on his boss’s desk was, “McDonald’s Monopoly Fraud?” So a scam in a fast food chain game and … a question mark. Mathews and his team in Jacksonville, Florida, received an anonymous tip that some of the winners knew each other. This somehow logically revealed doubts about the purity of the competition.
The story has hardly been discussed in public, partly due to the general confusion following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Only in recent years has director James Lee Hernandez embarked on its reconstruction, learning about it in 2012 at Reddit. He found out that McDonald’s was completely forged, contacted the authorities under the Freedom of Information Act, and obtained the names of investigators in three years.
The most popular case
In 2017, he addressed agents and prosecutors, who said it was their “favorite case.” Although they are the facts of the case are already well documented, the six-part series takes place from the point of view of FBI investigators as they try to gather a series of interconnected tracks. The investigation began in 2000, when a mysterious informant called the FBI, claiming that the game had been manipulated by McDonald’s. And she was run by a “Uncle Jerry.” The game, which the chain organized in 40 American states, consisted in the fact that the players collected parts of the Monopoly game from the covers of McDonald’s as well as as an advertisement for various magazines. And former police officer Jerome Jacobson, aka Uncle Jerry, figured out how to get into the game and still had fun with it.
He also wanted money in advance for some of them, that is, before they went to choose to win.
For Jacobson himself, his uncle’s role was simple. It was he who was at the contractor for McDonald’s responsible for making those pieces of the Monopoly puzzle. Now, however, they needed to be discreetly distributed to loyal people. These “loyal people” then carried Jerry fire. But beware, after some he even wanted money in advance, that is, before they went to choose the prize.
FBI agents then discovered the entire network gradually. In one case, they even recorded a scene on one of the white horses that they were from McDonald’s and were going to film his happy reaction when he handed over the prize of a million dollars. When they asked him how he had come up with a piece of Monopoly, and they heard the story of the drowned magazine from which the piece came, they knew. The arrests took place in August 2001 and a total of eight people were arrested, including McDonald’s senior executives. Jacobson was given 15 years and several of his luxury cars were confiscated.
We didn’t hurt anyone
But we probably won’t reveal more. The first three parts of the series only let the audience into the issue, they lead them into the world of striptease bars and scams, without a clear explanation of how Jacobson actually did it all. The involvement of McDonald’s managers is revealed gradually, all illustrated by archival footage and interviews with fake winners.
Single mother Gloria Brown confides in interviews that she considered winning to be a divine gift for her son.
The authors of the series also deal with the effects on individual winners, ie on those Jacobson’s white horses. Many of them claim that it was a crime without victims, no one was harmed, except for the reputation of a billion-dollar corporation. One false winner, single mother Gloria Brown, confesses in interviews that she considered winning to be a divine gift for her son.
The filmmakers remind us that at the time of the competition, everyone wanted to win. It was a nationwide mania. The motives of those who had the opportunity to “win”, albeit fraudulently, are therefore completely understandable. Who wouldn’t take the chance to get it from “Uncle Jerry.” And almost free.
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source: The Guardian
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