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‘McMillions’: ex-cop orchestrated $24M McDonald’s Monopoly scam
- grawprog 7y agoI read this story not too long ago. It's a pretty amazing story, honestly like something from a movie. Though, it did make me think back to being a kid at that time being hopeful we might win. Get that boardwalk and park place. Now I know it was never possible to win in Canada at that time it does kind of bring this feeling of being cheated. My dad always said conspiratorially that the game was a scam and you could never win. It's funny to think he was right, though not for the reasons he thought.
- pcwalton 7y agoWikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly#Fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly#Fraud The reason why this incident isn't more widely known is that the trial commenced on September 10, 2001. Needless to say, coverage of it was quickly eclipsed by more serious events.
- heymijo 7y agoI wonder what other happenings in the U.S. were eclipsed by 9/11.
- jhbadger 7y agoThe Alt-rock band They Might Be Giants had a long awaited album "Mink Car" released on the unfortunate date of September 11, 2001.
- eCa 7y agoSame with Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft.
- CapricornNoble 7y agoIt was also the release date of Slayer's ominously-titled "God Hates Us All". https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Slayer/God_Hates_Us_All/224 https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Slayer/God_Hates_Us_Al...
- unlinked_dll 7y agoChandra Levy's murder was front page news until the attacks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy Also a good podcast episode about the case and investigation https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-chandra-levy/ https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-chandra-levy/
- casefields 7y agoNo wonder I never heard that they solved it: >Following a series of investigative reports by The Washington Post in 2008, the MPD followed up and finally obtained a warrant, on March 3, 2009, to arrest Ingmar Guandique, the illegal immigrant from El Salvador identified and dismissed by the MPDC eight years earlier.
- yaakov34 7y agoI remember hearing a joke around that time - "Who is the happiest man in America right now? - Gary Condit." Condit was being tossed and gored in the media for his supposed role in the disappearance of the intern with whom he had an affair. It was all forgotten pretty quickly that September. Apparently he had nothing to do with the intern's disappearance and murder, but it took years for that to be established.
- lioeters 7y agoOn September 10, 2001, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld revealed that the Pentagon had lost $2.3 trillion from its budget. That figure has now grown to $6.5 trillion and counting.
- jbuzbee 7y agohttps://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-rumsfeld-says-2-3-trillion-missing-from-the-pentagon.165/ https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-rumsfeld-says-2-3-...
- yesenadam 7y agoThank you. That's a great site!
- 34679 7y agoI just read it for the first time and was surprised to learn that he was announcing massive cuts to military spending, with base closures, consolidating departments between branches, eliminating acquisition teams, and outsourcing things like janitorial work. That, and better tracking of where the money is going. It was actually a refreshing speech and the exact opposite of the warmonger Rumsfeld would come to be known as. https://web.archive.org/web/20100301161721/http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=430 https://web.archive.org/web/20100301161721/http://www.defens... "There's a myth, sort of a legend, that money enters this building and disappears, like a bright light into a black hole, never to be seen again. In truth, there is a real person at the other end of every dollar, a real person who's in charge of every domain, and that means that there will be real consequences from, and real resistance to, fundamental change."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dpiers 7y agoDonnie Darko’s release in October 2001 was very quiet after they pulled all advertising because a plane crash plays a prominent role in the plot.
- catalogia 7y agoThe ending of the MGS2 video game (released in November of 2001) was butchered, since it involved a massive submarine crashing into New York City and Konami feared the game could be seen as a criticism of America. In the cutscenes that survived the butchering, you can see vestigial remnants of the original; most notably flagpoles without American flags on them. The ending of the game has the "villain" explain his desire to free America from the AI that personified of the military industrial complex. When he died, an American flag was meant to symbolically fall on his body.
- PostOnce 7y agoIs that a regional change or a global change? Did the Japanese release retain the original ending?
- catalogia 7y agoUnfortunately it was a global change. MGS2 released in the US first, Japan a few weeks later. I'm not sure if that played a roll in any way.
- baroomba 7y agoSupposedly Propeller Arena on the Dreamcast was cancelled over the 9/11 attacks, though I suspect the game was already struggling or being killed for other reasons. There's a leak of the fairly-complete game and it's a hell of a lot of fun. My friends and I have burned a few evenings over the years on it. One of a handful of multiplayer games that we've loved and have no newer replacements for[1] so we have to bust out older consoles or emulation to play them. [1] some others: Bushido Blade 2 (Playstation), Hunter Hunted (PC), Return Fire (Playstation), Blur (Playstation 3), kind of Perfect Dark (N64) which in many ways remains unmatched though of course there are many modern shooters; and then there are other games that do have modern sequels but we much prefer the older ones and they're rapidly getting harder to play because they're from early-ish 3D consoles and don't get re-releases so they won't compete with their own sequels (Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, for instance)
- quietbritishjim 7y agoInfamously, here in the UK someone employed by the government had a similar thought and issued a memo that day saying that it was "a good day to bury bad news". Unfortunately for her, the memo was leaked.
- spodek 7y agoThe company I left graduate to cofound based on my invention was scheduled to launch that day with what would have been a major media event we'd planned for months. Here's a brief history for anyone interested: http://joshuaspodek.com/videos-invention-company-founded http://joshuaspodek.com/videos-invention-company-founded. While we didn't face consequences on the scale of people in the towers, the Pentagon, who fought overseas, and first responders, it devastated us.
- DavidAdams 7y agoOn the morning of September 11, I stepped onto the stage at a trade show to launch my new product. Over the course of the presentation, a buzz developed, and people started standing up and leaving. By the end of my speech, the trade show had been cancelled and everyone was going home. Needless to say, the product was not successful.
- angry_octet 7y agoCan we ask what it was? I'm curious to know if it would have gained traction if it had been launched a year later.
- motbob 7y agoI remember hearing a lot about it during the leadup to the trial, even as a middle-schooler at the time. Because of how popular the Monopoly promotion was at the time, it left a big impact.
- LeoTinnitus 7y agoDidn't Gary Condit get accused of murdering his wife too or was the prime suspect?
- philwelch 7y agoI distinctly remember the nickname, "Con-did-it".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tedunangst 7y agoSome previous articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17638677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17638677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10643160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10643160
- onetimemanytime 7y agoSo he sold $1 Million tickets to the mob for $50K and the mobster got half of the prize from people. And those people got (stuck with paying taxes on the hole $1 Million.) He got too little but then it was just a "day's work" and after a while you cannot launder them yourself.
- steve19 7y agoIf the prize "winners" came ahead with a dollar more than taxes they came out ahead. He was smart, he took a decent amount of money but didn't risk his banker questioning where millions of dollars in his bank account came from.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoNot if they spent the money before paying the taxes. You know how it goes when you get a bunch of money all of the sudden
- backupcavalry 7y agoHell, you'll be relatively lucky if taxes are all that gets you: https://abcnews.go.com/US/lottery-jackpot-winners-lost-big/story?id=36313525 https://abcnews.go.com/US/lottery-jackpot-winners-lost-big/s... As pleasurable as it is to imagine myself winning huge sums of cash it's also almost a sort of fire drill for in case it ever actually happens.
- ceejayoz 7y ago> If the prize "winners" came ahead with a dollar more than taxes they came out ahead. Only if you don't count the risk of getting caught (and the lifelong stress that risk may induce even if you don't).
- JeanMarcS 7y agoWere there bad publicity for Mc Donald after that in the US ? After all, they made 40% raise in sales for a prize that was not possible.
- xenadu02 7y agoAs I recall they ran a new promotion after this all came out with even bigger prizes (and more of them) as an apology.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoMcDo: Here we're putting you in charge of placing the $1Million prize pieces. Employee: Okey-dokes. McDo: [Thinks] Hey that employee is getting really rich, must be completely unrelated. Lets not bother to check up on them. ??? Was someone higher up in on the deal?
- TwoBit 7y agoI'm surprised at the lack of checks and balances in place. That one person had unchecked control of the game.
- tehwebguy 7y agoSeriously, it seems like he was like the only person they needed to keep an eye on.
- abtinf 7y agoAlong these lines... I once saw a movie in which, during a small town election, a character commented “You know who decides elections? The ballot counter.”
- closeparen 7y agoContested elections have ballots counted in the presence of witnesses from each side.
- distances 7y agoAll vote counting is made with the presence of people from multiple parties. Everywhere I've voted in, at least.
- ceejayoz 7y agoHe wasn't a McDonalds employee at all. > Jacobson was an ex-cop-turned-security guard who worked for Los Angeles-based Simon Marketing, which oversaw the contest behind the scenes. "Oh, I work for other clients too" would've been a perfectly reasonable explanation for getting wealthy.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agoIt's interesting how quickly people are tempted by money. I worked for a store that decided that they needed to reduce staff so they got rid of the supervisors that supervised the cashiers when they cashed out. They figured the cashiers had been there for so many years so they were trustworthy. Almost immediately the cashiers started to cheat by skimming a bit of cash and within a few months, most of them were replaced because they had been caught cheating in some way. The temptation is too great for many people. Checks and balances always need to be put in place no matter how trustworthy the person is. This case is a prime example of that.
- LanceH 7y agoThey had trained those cashiers for years that the only reason they aren't skimming is because they are being watched.
- krsdcbl 7y agoSecond that opinion, to me it sounds like they where never put in a trust situation where they'd really be in charge of a clean and honest cashout, and lashed back on the system when their "babysitters" where taken away.
- techntoke 7y ago> Almost immediately the cashiers started to cheat by skimming a bit of cash and within a few months, most of them were replaced because they had been caught cheating in some way. Who caught them and how if they stopped counting the drawers?
- djannzjkzxn 7y agoA security camera on the register seems like the easiest way. If the cashier’s count doesn’t match the sum of customer transaction then watch the footage until you see them pocket the money.
- setheron 7y ago
- unishark 7y ago"Taking the stand in a Jacksonville, Fla., courthouse, he admitted: “All I can tell you is I made the biggest mistake of my life.” More like "the biggest protracted series of mistakes". Or perhaps "the most mistakey criminal enterprise I have ever devoted 12 years of my life to".
- stevebmark 7y agoIt's a great story so reposts aren't that frustrating, but the Daily Beast reporting in 2018 is better researched and wildly entertaining: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-an-ex-cop-rigged-mcdonalds-monopoly-game-and-stole-millions https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-an-ex-cop-rigged-mcdonalds...
- heedlessly3 7y agoI don't believe Jacobson's connection to Columbo was a complete random happening at an airport. More realistically, at least one of Jacobson's friends or family couldn't keep their mouth shut that Jacbson worked for the promotion. An associate of theirs was connected to Columbo and decided to extort Jacobson.