Here’s what to know before you watch. The True Story Behind New HBO Doc About McDonalds Scam, This story contains spoilers for To All The Boys: Always and Forever, now streaming on Netflix. He eventually got caught giving his stepbrother a ticket valued at $25,000. But the scheme unraveled in 2000 after an anonymous tip was sent in to the FBI – alleging an insider known as "Uncle Jerry" (Jacobson) was rigging the games and that the previous $1 million winner was a fraud. The piece was worth $25,000, and that was only the beginning. Evidence exhibits from “McMillions” on HBO. In 1989, Jacobson, who was earning $70,000 a year at the time, stole his first tokens and gave a token for $25,000 to his step-brother Marvin Braun. Jacobson’s fortune, and his downfall, came from gaming the twice-a-year promotion, which promised anything from a free sandwich to a million dollars to the customer who revealed the lucky game piece — a property, a railroad — when they peeled off the sticker attached to their hash brown wrapper or soda cup or the inside of a magazine. They became Jacobson’s accomplices, the middlemen who would sell the pieces Jacobson had swiped to various “winners.”. In 1998, several years before Jacobson’s trial, an agent with Nevada’s Gaming Control Board was sentenced on a racketeering charge after designing a computer program that rigged slot machines in Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe. If you’ve never played, the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion involves collecting tiny peel-off game pieces that were found on the packaging of the chain’s menu items and in print ads. The decision paid off, allowing Dent to pin down Andrew Glomb for the first time. His local butcher, who paid $2,000 for a stolen $10,000 piece. Jerry Jacobson swindled more than $24 million out of a major fast food promotion over 12 years. The answer to the first question begins with a stroke of luck that was literally Jacobson's lottery ticket. Jacobson couldn’t redeem the pieces himself, nor … As the scheme continued, Jacobson found even more recruiters. To All The Boys: Always and Forever kicks off with La, The Best Galentine’s Day Movies On Netflix, Every Song From The Stirring ’60s Soundtrack For, 21 Seriously Romantic Movies Streaming On Amazon Prime Right Now. His nephew, who received a $200,000 piece in exchange for $45,000. And in 2010, the director of information security at the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the game in 33 states, wrote a computer code to manipulate the association’s random-number generators — producing winning lottery numbers that he could predict in advance. Dent convinced McDonald’s to run one more Monopoly promotion, so the F.B.I. Jerome Jacobson, also known as Uncle Jerry, was Chief of Security at Simon Marketing. One of the biggest mysteries was who sent a winning ticket in the mail to St. Jude’s. The FBI launched Operation Final Answer in response, setting up … In airport bathrooms — en route to packaging plants — Jacobson would remove the envelope’s original seal, swap out winning pieces for regular ones and resecure the envelope with one of the new seals he was sent. James Lee Hernandez, the co-director of. Jerome was fabulously rich, flying from place to place, stealing tickets and passing them on through his network. The ‘McMillions’ Monopoly Scheme, Explained. In total, Jerome and his conspirators (from whose winnings he'd inevitably take a cut) would go on to steal $24 million from right under the nose of the fast food empire. For whatever reason, Jerry did steal that Monopoly ticket. A crew of scam artists, led by security expert Jerry Jacobson, cheated the popular McDonald's Monopoly game out of $24 million before being taken down by the FBI. Jacobson’s scheme involved stealing the game pieces from Dittler Brothers Printing, the Oakwood, Georgia, printing company where … He had to test the waters, so he did a trial-run. … Jacobson randomly met Gennaro Colombo, of New York’s Colombo crime family, in 1995. That was when an anonymous tip-off prompted the FBI investigation which brought the whole house of cards crashing to the ground. Uncle Jerry would distribute tickets to pre-selected “winners” … A New HBO Documentary Called 'McMillion$' Tells The Whole Story. Colombo sold a $1 million piece to Gloria Brown, a friend of his wife, on the side of the highway for $40,000 in cash, Brown said in an interview with The Daily Beast. The six-part series tells the story of how former cop Jerry Jacobson rigged a scheme to steal winning tickets from the popular McDonald’s Monopoly … The F.B.I. Jerry started with his stepbrother, Marvin Braun, who went on to become a $25,000 [£19,212.38] winner in 1989. Over the years, the fraud grew beyond his circle as he found other conspirators, usually by chance — which made them more difficult to pin down during the F.B.I.’s investigation years later. Jacobson got a job at a printing company and worked with Simon Marketing, where his job was overseeing the production of McDonald’s Monopoly tickets and sending them off to factories. received an anonymous phone tip: Someone named “Uncle Jerry” was rigging the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion, stealing game pieces from the inside and selling them. The game went on from 1989 to early 2001, but eventually, the general public — and the FBI — realized something was Filet-O-Fishy about the people who were claiming their winnings. To carry out the fraud, he removed the most valuable tickets from the game at work and shared the ticket with his ‘associates’ and family members who would then redeem them at McDonald’s stores. There’s a reason the scheme didn’t last long in the public’s memory: The trial, in Jacksonville, started on Sept. 10, 2001, and was quickly overshadowed by the events of Sept. 11. But by then he figured he could scale his actions into something much, much bigger. He began stealing winning game pieces after a supplier mistakenly provided him a sheet of the anti-tamper seals needed to secretly make the swap. Peeling back a tab to reveal a Monopoly game piece. He received cash kickbacks for stealing 50 to 60 pieces and bought homes, cars and other property. The contest started in 1987 as the brainchild of Simon Marketing, th… He was in charge of keeping the promotion secure, delivering the most lucrative game pieces to McDonald’s packaging plants. Colombo, though, died after a car accident in 1998. Instead, through most of the 1990s, he pocketed and sold them to a vast network of friends and distant relatives. A supplier sent him a package by mistake, filled with the metallic tamper-proof seals — the ones used to secure the envelopes filled with game pieces that Jacobson was charged with delivering. Jerry Jacobson served 3 years in prison (Image: SKY) Between 1995 and 2000, Jacobson and his associates won almost all of the top prizes, taking home over $24 million (£18,5m) in … Jacobson, according to The Daily Beast story, said he met Gennaro Colombo, who claimed to be a member of New York’s Colombo crime family, at the Atlanta airport in 1995. Dent launched an investigation that would rope in 25 agents nationwide. In the end, more than 50 people were convicted in the scheme. He then drove her to a McDonald’s, walked her through what to say and helped her lie about where she lived to avoid drawing suspicion — a surplus of winners was popping up in Jacksonville, Fla., where she and others connected to Colombo resided. In 1989, he stole his first game piece and slipped it to his brother. Colombo distributed $1 million tickets to family and friends, taking a cut for himself and Jacobson with each ticket. Jerry Jacobson swindled more than $24 million out of a major fast food promotion over 12 years. All The Anti-Valentine's Day Movies On Netflix For When You Just ... Lana Condor On Saying Goodbye To Lara Jean — & The Alternate Endi... 12 Seriously Horny Movies On Amazon Prime Right Now, Jerry was involved with some shady people. The FBI informant's identity uncovered. Gloria Brown, Murray found, was also having her annual checks delivered to a Jacksonville address. The whole setup started to play out like a Martin Scorsese film. A new HBO documentary series chronicles the plot that siphoned off $24 million in McDonald’s prizes. In March 2000, the FBI received a tip: One of the winners, William Fisher, who had won the 1996 “Deluxe Monopoly Game,” was clearly a fraudulent winner. The person revealed that “winners” paid Uncle Jerry for stolen game pieces in various ways. One butcher in Atlanta got involved and had his relative “win” a $10,000 prize, and gave Uncle Jerry a $2,000 cut. It was not the first time, or the last, that someone had gamed a competition supposedly decided by luck. Jacobson was waiting to board a cruise ship several years later when he met Don Hart, who in turn introduced him to Andrew Glomb at a dinner party. Simon Marketing, where Jerry worked, was the subcontracting company McDonald’s used to help make the popular game – which meant Jerry oversaw the production and printing of the game pieces. Now in his late 70s, he still lives in Georgia. McDonald’s still runs similar promotions to the Monopoly sweepstakes, but the corporation has since created an “independent promotions task force” to prevent future copycats. She then filled out the prize forms and made it look like she actually had found the winning ticket in her car. Simon Marketing was the subcontracting company – formerly a subsidiary of Cyrk – which had been hired by McDonald’s to organise and promote the McDonald’s Monopoly game. By 2001, around 50 people were known to be involved in the scheme — all of whom were arrested along with Uncle Jerry. How did he pull it off? The move was fraught with legal risks — the corporation, in its collaboration with federal investigators, already knew at this point that its game was compromised. Soon, he started slipping the prize-winning pieces to people he knew, sometimes for profit. He found his big lead in 2001, when he mapped out the addresses of three winners — all of whom lived within miles of Jacobson’s South Carolina lake house. It was Jacobson who watched the winning pieces being printed, who locked them away in a vault, who sealed them up and tucked them in his vest and flew from factory to factory to hide them in McDonald’s packaging, according to The Daily Beast, which looked back on the case years later. But For 12 Years, One Man Named Jerry "Uncle Jerry" Jacobson Was Stealing And Distributing The Winning Tickets In His Own Private Scam. The rest, as they always say, was history. But Jacobson would slip into airport bathrooms, lock himself in stalls and carefully open the envelopes to steal the pieces. Brown was driven to a McDonald’s and was coached what to tell them. He was a police officer in Hollywood, Florida, for just one year before a wrist injury benched him, followed by the diagnosis of the rare neurological condition Guillain-Barré syndrome, according to the Daily Beast , which wrote its own article on the case in 2018. Special Agent Richard Dent, based in the F.B.I.’s Jacksonville office, contacted a McDonald’s spokeswoman, Amy Murray, who began trying to verify the winners. He was then forced to fork over $12.5 million in earnings. His stepbrother. McDonald’s, through an instant million-dollar giveaway, tried to quietly make amends with customers. Ultimately, 51 people were indicted as a result of the FBI’s investigation, most of them on charges of conspiracy and fraud. His trick: stealing and selling McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces. He knew he couldn’t get too greedy, since doing so could threaten the entire operation. The FBI joined McDonald’s in an effort to put an end to it. Here’s how it worked. Jacobson got a job at a printing company and worked with Simon Marketing, where his job was overseeing the production of McDonald’s Monopoly tickets and sending them off to factories. And thus, the multi-million dollar scheme began! It becomes a little strange when only people in a certain area of the country are “winning” millions of dollars. So basically: People were promised a winning ticket that would ensure they’d get a million dollars (or at least, a big chunk of money), and the puppet masters behind the scene asked for a cut of every single one of these “winning” tickets. It all goes back to Jerry Jacobson (aka Uncle Jerry), an ex-cop who set up a scheme that involved selling winning tickets in exchange for a cut of the total prize. Well, the people who went in on the scheme knew that it was shady. His trick: stealing and selling McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces. Sometimes Uncle Jerry would demand cash up front, requiring winners to … Customers were convinced the game was rigged, that maybe even the McDonald’s employees were keeping the tickets to themselves. Since too many “winners” lived in Jacksonville, Brown went to South Carolina to find her winning ticket. She helped her husband get a job with one of her clients, Dittler Brothers, which printed the McDonald’s game pieces. Jacobson, who declined to speak to The Daily Beast and did not respond to a request from The Times, said at his trial that he had stolen as many as 60 game pieces. Did Uncle Jerry really send the mystery $1 million prize ticket to St. Jude’s? During business trips, Jacobson secretly switched the winning game pieces inside the envelopes with “common” game pieces then resealed them with the anti-tamper stickers. He served 37 months behind bars and agreed to pay $12.5 million in restitution. The object was to collect various Monopoly properties that could be redeemed for cash prizes, with some instant-win pieces ranging from free food to cars, vacations, and millions of dollars. The $1 million winners, for example, passed the first $50,000 installment to Uncle Jerry in cash. Jacobson — known to law enforcement and his cohorts as “Uncle Jerry” — was not a well man for much of his life. But the winners weren't criminal masterminds. arrested eight major suspects on Aug. 22, 2001, and charged Jacobson with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. He did this inside the men’s bathroom at the airport where he could evade the company’s independent auditor who shadowed him on the trips. The finale kicks off focusing on the mysterious informant who tipped off the FBI in 2001. Jacobson came across the materials he needed by accident, according to The Daily Beast article. could track down the final evidence it needed. Jerome Jacobson and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip-club owners, and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’ It was with Colombo's help that Jacobson figured out they had to be very careful with making sure the “winners” didn’t all live in nearby cities or even states, so they’d have the “winners” either travel to get their winning tickets, or convince the individuals to use family or friends as proxies. One winner — Colombo’s father-in-law, who claimed $1 million from the contest — told Murray that he lived in New Hampshire, but property records in Jacksonville proved otherwise. Even though Uncle Jerry and his network did their best to dilute the locations of the people who “won” the prizes, it was undeniable that there seemed to be a pattern. Colombo wanted in on the scam and helped Uncle Jerry find people who he could persuade to do business with him. Jacobson sold winning pieces for a percentage of the winnings in advance, [7] initially to friends and family but expanding nationwide after a chance meeting in the Atlanta airport between him and Gennaro "Jerry" Colombo of the Colombo crime family . Jacobson went into private security work after having served briefly as a police officer in Hollywood, Fla. His connection to the Monopoly game began when he and his wife at the time, Marsha, moved to Atlanta, where she began work as a security auditor. He later moved to Simon Marketing, a company in the same area, that produced the pieces. This type of arrangement happened to many people. He would then pass the winning pieces on to Colombo and his other “recruiters,” who tracked down willing buyers and coached them through claiming their winnings. In March 2000, according to The Daily Beast, the F.B.I. The details of how Jacobson, a former police officer, pulled off a multimillion-dollar scam include a national McDonald’s Monopoly game promotion and a stealthy heist that found Jacobson … “McMillions,” a six-part HBO documentary series premiering Monday, chronicles the scam and its unraveling.

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