Grand Plans The McDonald’s Monopoly game was one of
the most successful marketing campaigns in fast-food history.
attached million-dollar prizes to boxes of french fries.
While most of us won small prizes such as an apple pie or a small drink, some people
made a fortune.
But the man McDonald's trusted with their grand prizes had other plans.
Just how did the man who was codenamed “Uncle Jerry” to the FBI, make a small fortune
of 24 million dollars for himself and his co-conspirators between 1987 and 2001?
Jerome Jacobson Jerome P. Jacobson was an ex-cop who joined
Dittler Brothers Printing as security personnel in 1981.
A life-threatening disease called Guillain-Barré cost him his policing career, but Jerome was
determined to stay within the field however he could.
Jacobson was like a drill sergeant when it came to security at Dittler Brothers.
He would check employees' shoes before leaving and wouldn't let anybody go to the bathroom
alone.
Jacobson became the head of security for Simon Marketing.
The company used Dittler Brothers printing to make the game pieces for McDonald's promotional
games like Monopoly and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Six years after joining Dittler, McDonald's unleashed a new game that took the nation
by storm—McDonald's Monopoly.
The premise was simple—McDonald's products came with attached game pieces.
Find the coveted Boardwalk piece or all four railroads, and you could be an instant winner.
Prizes ranged from a free box of fries up to $1 Million.
“Protection” Mechanism But McDonald's wasn't making the tickets themselves,
nor was the promotion their idea in the first place.
McDonald's Monopoly was the brainchild of Simon Marketing, and Jerome was in charge
of guarding and transporting the high-value tickets.
These tickets were stored like nuclear launch codes, and Jerome had the keys.
You know in the movies when two people have to turn their keys simultaneously to open
the six-inch thick bulletproof door?
That's where the tickets were held.
After the production, Jacobson had to transport the game pieces to the packaging facilities.
These packaging houses were where the game pieces were attached to random cups and french
fry boxes before being sent to different McDonald's worldwide.
Jacobson had to carry the tickets inside tamper-proof envelopes so that no one could open them until
the moment they were stuck to a box of fries.
While Jacobson was doing his duty and supervising others, another person kept an eye on him.
An independent female auditor followed Jacobson wherever he went.
The auditor kept a sharp eye on each step Jacobson took to make sure he didn't do anything
crazy or alter the game pieces in any way.
It's not that Simon Marketing didn't trust Jacobson.
You can think of this independent auditor as a method of checks and balances.
Canadian Rules It was a computer program's job to pick where
the winning tickets would be sent randomly.
One day, the computer chose a McDonald's in Canada to receive the Million-dollar ticket.
Corporate called down and ordered the program to be rerun until the winner popped up somewhere
in the United States.
Jacobson saw this and thought, "The game is already rigged, so why don't I cash in?"
He saw this as his "Get Out Jail Free Card."
Jacobson kept records of the Canada conspiracy close to his chest, knowing he'd need the
details if he were caught.
Jerome became the Walter White of McDonald's Monopoly with a game he already knew to be
rigged and a life-threatening disease lingering in the back of his mind.
“Random” The year was 1989.
Jacobson was taking multiple flights all over the country, transporting winning tickets
wherever he went.
The auditor followed him like a shadow, and everything was going as it should.
But one day, a mailing mistake changed Jerom's life forever.
An extra box full of tamper-proof envelopes, the same ones used to transport the winning
pieces, landed on his desk.
It was at that moment that Jacobson broke bad.
Now, the auditor was the only obstacle in his way.
But Jacobson soon discovered the one place she wouldn't follow, the airport men's room.
Jacobson entered the airport men's room, removed the winning tickets from the envelopes, and
pocketed them.
He'd then filled the envelope with common pieces worth about as much as a Large Fry
and then re-sealed the envelope with his extra seals.
This was the beginning of a multi-million-dollar fraud that would continue for 12 years!
Game Piece Laundromat Jacobson was a mastermind.
He knew that he couldn't redeem the prizes himself as it would be evidence of his crime.
He started small.
He made generous offerings to family and friends at the beginning of his scam.
He would sell the pieces to those close to him.
He first started by giving a $25,000 winning ticket to his step-brother, Marvin.
Then, he sold a $10,000 ticket to his butcher for $2,000.
Whether it was two-grand in cash or cold cuts, we'll never know.
Not Gambling But Jacobson wasn't the only person ripping
off the McDonald's Monopoly tickets.
An employee at a Wisconsin McDonald's stole 3000 tickets right off the spool.
At the time, you could walk into McDonald's and ask for a ticket.
This was so McDonald's Monopoly couldn't be considered a form of gambling.
If you have the option to play for free, it's not gambling.
There have even been documented cases of armed robberies at McDonald's for Monopoly pieces.
The increase in theft forced Mcdonald's to change the way the game was played.
Instead, cashiers would hand the game pieces out from a secure roll at the counter.
The spike in theft put Jacobson's scam on hold until 1995.
That year, McDonald's ramped up the scale of the contest.
Monopoly pieces were slapped on everything from drink cups to hash brown bags.
You could even find pieces on McDonald's ads in magazines.
Monopoly Mafia Jerome's operation was still small.
He dealt with family and friends and did well to keep his scam under wraps.
But, in true Monopoly-style, greed got the better of him.
Jacobson met mobster Gennaro Colombo while waiting for a plane in Atlanta.
Colombo was a member of the New York Colombo Crime Family and became the Al Capone of the
McDonalds Monopoly scam.
He ran nightclubs in South Carolina but had his hands in multiple branches of Mafia business.
He was even featured in a McDonald's Monopoly commercial after winning a Dodge Viper, courtesy
of Jerome, of course.
For some reason, Jacobson decided to tell Colombo everything about his scam, and the
mobster wanted in.
His McDonald's scam was now intertwined with the New York Italian Mafia.
The two became close, and the scheme quadrupled in size.
Colombo introduced Jerome to his friends and family.
They coined Jerome's infamous nickname—Uncle Jerry.
The duo worked together to continue the scam throughout the nineties.
Colombo introduced Jacobson to more individuals who showed interest in taking part in the
scam. Jacobson was receiving instant cash at a discounted value in exchange for the
tickets.
Colombo was acting as the middleman.
Although almost all the buyers of these tickets lived in the South-Eastern part of the United
States, they knew they couldn't claim the prize money in the same area.
This would have drawn unwanted attention and would create suspension.
Instead, they dispatched tickets and winners to different parts of the country and claimed
to find the winning tickets in various states.
For example, Colombo's father-in-law traveled from Jacksonville, Florida, to New Hampshire
to claim his winning ticket.
Reckless Spending By 1998, Jacobson had turned America into
his personal board game.
He and his wife Linda moved into a beautiful brick home in Georgia, and he used $65,000
thousand dollars to buy himself a classic Oldsmobile.
He owned a lakefront property, was a classic car club member, and went on regular cruises.
Jacobson was hanging around with mobsters constantly.
He started wearing fancy suits and even went by the moniker "Geraldo Constantino."
Jacobson lived a luxurious life when suddenly Colombo was killed in a car accident in May
of 1998.
Colombo and his wife, Robin, were in the same car, but miraculously Robin survived.
The crash was considered an accident, but the Colombo family didn't see it that way.
They launched their own investigation into Robin and the nature of the crash.
Colombo's passing severed Jerome's ties with the crime family.
Jacobson needed to replace the Colombo family's ability to launder money.
The following days, he found two men who would take his scam to the next level through a
newly formed network - Andrew Glomb and Richard Couturier.
These two guys had a common goal - to recruit as many prospects as possible.
Glomb didn't need the money, so he'd give the winning tickets to some of his old crime
associates that were down on their luck.
Glombs' odd-choice of winners started attracting attention as one Million-dollar winner had
previously pled guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in 1999.
On the other hand, Couturier owned a chain of fried chicken restaurants and thought he
was doing something legal.
He was fooled into thinking Jerome was trying to find real winners.
He was told that most people just threw away their game pieces, and they were handing out
prizes to drive McDonald's sales.
As a restaurant owner himself, Couturier understood the concept.
Jerry handed over 18 grand prize tickets to his new friends, which included almost a dozen
Million-dollar prizes.
Over the next few years, the team had won all of McDonald's top prizes.
Anonymous Tip In 2000, the FBI received an anonymous tip
that outlined the McDonald's Monopoly game fraud.
The tip claimed that one of the million-dollar winners was illegitimate.
The winner in question was Robin's father, William Fisher.
The former mafia-wife believes the Colombo family called in the anonymous tip as retaliation
for Geranno's death.
The tip also mentioned a guy named Uncle Jerry to be the ringleader behind the whole thing.
The FBI started investigating this tip.
They were wiretapping and tracking the trail of Fisher's bills and electricity records.
The FBI discovered that Fisher wasn't honest about where he found the winning ticket.
The FBI found out that Fisher's primary home was in Jacksonville, Florida.
However, Fisher claims he found the winning ticket in New Hampshire after living there
for a year.
However, there were no property or electricity records of him living in New Hampshire for
even fifteen minutes.
After confirming Fisher lied, the FBI began investigating other past winners.
They found out several winners had been lying about their home address when claiming a winning
ticket.
The FBI discovered that even though these winners were spread across the United States,
portions of their annual checks were re-routed to Jacksonville—to Uncle Jerry.
The FBI designated 25 agents to work on this case, and it was named "Operation Final Answer"
after the McDonald's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire promotion.
After tracking 20,000 phone numbers, amounting to 235 cassette tapes of recorded telephone
calls, the FBI was ready to connect the dots.
In the same year, Jacobson met Dwight Baker, a real estate developer and a devout member
of the Mormon Church.
He became one of Jacobson's closest allies as well.
Operation Final Answer The FBI began their investigation by tapping
Jacobson's phone.
Additionally, they followed him to meetings and set up monitored buys to gather evidence.
They were slowly closing in on Uncle Jerry.
The wiretaps lead the FBI to 'Uncle Jerry' through Dwight Baker and Andrew Glomb.
Behind a closed-door meeting, the FBI revealed their findings to McDonald's top executives
and heads of security.
They revealed that the Monopoly game had been rigged for over a decade, and the mountain
of evidence pointing to Uncle Jerry was undeniable.
The bi-annual Monopoly promotion was just about to begin, and McDonald's had a decision
to make.
Run the promotion knowing it's rigged, or cancel the promotion to prevent any further
theft.
Between a rock and a hard place, the FBI convinced Mcdonald's to run the promotion one more time.
They knew they could gather the last shroud of evidence they needed to take down Uncle
Jerry once and for all.
McDonald's agreed, and the FBI launched a sting operation to join the final pieces of
the puzzle.
They executed the "McSting' disguised as a McDonald's film team sent to interview the
most recent winner, Michael Hoover.
Hoover, who got his ticket from Andrew Glomb, had no clue that the shooting crew around
him was full of FBI agents.
This was the final nail in the coffin.
Uncle Jerry's McScam fell to McPieces.
Go Directly to Jail Arrests started coming left and right in the
Summer of 2001.
The FBI arrested anybody associated with the Monopoly scam.
Most importantly, they raided Jacobson's home just before dawn.
A media frenzy ensued, but Jacobson had one last trick up his sleeve.
At the beginning of the scam, a donation clerk at St. Jude's Children's Hospital found a
$1 million Monopoly piece on their desk.
An investigation at the time could not identify the mysterious donor.
Of course, it was Uncle Jerry.
Jerome tried to use the St. Jude donation and the Canadian scandal to lessen his sentence,
but the FBI wasn't budging.
Jacobson's assets were seized, and neighbors watched as government agents drove away in
all of his fancy cars.
As widespread as the McDonald's Monopoly scam was, many American's don't remember it.
Why?
Because court proceedings began on September 10th, 2001.
The next day, the World Trade Center was attacked.
Aftermath In the end, 50 people total were convicted
of mail fraud and money laundering.
The underbosses like Couturier and Glomb got a year and one day in prison.
Jacobson eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 37 months in jail.
The judge ordered him to pay $12.5 million in restitution to McDonald's.
McDonald's honored the money won by St. Jude's Hospital and let them keep it.
As for the other stolen tickets, McDonald's eventually got their money back.
As for Jacobson, he and Glomb still keep in touch to this day.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Glomb joked about how he still calls Jacobson up
and asks if he's got any tickets.
In 2020, HBO put out a tell-all documentary called "McMillions."
The six-part series follows FBI agents as they tell the story of the McDonald's Monopoly
scam.
Click to watch one of these next videos!