SakshiBaker’s Greed Grows
Soon Baker too learned the nitty-gritty of the business. And when he grew enough confidence that he knows everything about it he decided to extend the hand of help to his friends and family. Two among them was his friend Ronald E. Hughey and Brenda Phenis, sister of his wife. Phenis was given the piece worth $500,000. Before giving the stolen piece of the prize, he would instruct the winners to leave their current residence and move to some other state and stay quiet about all this thing.
Paranoid Jacobson
By that time Jacobson had stolen many game pieces. The winners came from every state of the United States and now was getting featured in McDonald’s advertisement and commercials sharing their winning experience. This development did scare Jacobson a bit. Now, the stakes were way higher than the last ones. In order to get some relief, he decided to see a psychic. His fortune teller told him a prosperous future and in return got a $50,000 winning game piece in form of fee. They fortune teller couldn’t have been so wrong.
Someone Tipped Off The FBI
Richard Dent, the special agent at FBI Field Office in Jacksonville, Florida, was assigned the case of McDonald’s Monopoly in 2000. He received a very big clue when an unidentified informant phoned him and told him about William Fisher, the man who was one of the winner of the game in 1996 Deluxe Monopoly Game. The man had won $1 million prizes and was accused of fraud by the caller. The informant also told him about “Uncle Jerry” who was the mastermind behind this game. The agent had more to know.
Special Agent
Thereafter Agent Dent had words with McDonald’s spokesperson Amy Murray. The two together began to piece this puzzle. Firstly, they traced and questioned Fisher about his win. Fisher explained that he won the prize when he was residing in New Hemisphere for a year. At the time of questioning the man was in Jacksonville, Florida. However, his lie soon got caught as the electricity bills and property records told a whole different story. These records stated that the man was living in Florida only all this time. Another clue came from his bank records that put another name to light, Gloria Brown. This lady who too was a McDonald’s Monopoly winner was rerouting $50,000 checks to Jacksonville area.
Jacobson Becomes Suspect
Dent by now had smelled the conspiracy. He sent his concerns back to the Illinois headquarters of McDonald’s. The executives could not hide their astonishment and worries when they received his report. They nodded to help FBI with it and replied to him with a long list of past winners. They also told him that the game’s pieces were manufactured by Simon Marketing in Los Angeles and then went for printing at a Georgia-based firm. FBI did not take much time to reach Jerome “Jerry” Jacobson, the Marketing’s director of security. Initially, Dent thought it to be an easy task but that was not the case here.
Operation: Final Answer
This was one of the biggest scam ever in the game world. Special Agent Dent called the operation “Final Answer.” He along with 25 agents covering parts of United States started working on it. They enlisted more than 20,000 phone numbers tracked and recorded them and recorded the conversation of the suspected individuals. Amy Murray, McDonald’s spokesperson contacted winners and told them about the commercial featuring winners. She asked them if they wanted to be featured for the promotion of the game. It was done to extract as many information as they could from the winners and were sent to the Dent.