![mcdonalds monopoly scandal mcdonalds monopoly scandal](https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/McMillions-trailer-McDonalds-Monopoly.jpg)
The people who broke the rules get caught and are given commensurate punishment. Plus, unlike many of its predecessors, it comes with a satisfying conclusion. Defrauding multi-billion dollar companies of some millions is about all I can emotionally bear right now. After that, it just gets in the way of the story.īut it is a great story, made even greater by the fact that there is no harrowing suffering, no death, no catastrophic miscarriage of justice shown to be the result of systemic corruption as featured in much of this genre. In a crime documentary, a little nostalgia goes a long way. There is some footage of the “commercials” made by Mathews’ undercover FBI film crew, recording winners’ accounts of how they came by their prizes in order to check and challenge their versions later, but there is almost as much time spent screening old McDonald’s adverts and pictures of the outlets of the era. Re-enactments are mostly limited to suited men sitting round boardroom tables with their backs to camera. It is the characters who carry the series, which is remarkably unstylish in execution and rushes through parts of the investigation where you might have preferred it to linger, and lingers where you might have preferred it to pick up the pace a little. It involved an undercover operation led by – who else? – Mathews, fake commercials and trips to Vegas, rank amateurism and organised crime, reluctant and eager participants, duffle bags of money, a tiny dog with a foul temper, a mob widow and much, much more. Attention turned to the exploration of everyone in the chain from the production of the Monopoly pieces at an apparently secure printworks, to their final distribution.įrom there, the story and the investigation exploded. Eventually, they agreed to go ahead and allow the FBI to monitor the whole thing. But, as luck would have it, McDonald’s was about to run another Monopoly game.
![mcdonalds monopoly scandal mcdonalds monopoly scandal](https://miro.medium.com/max/696/0*jqj-ExfLLzKWH7sR.jpg)
But the question of who could be was stymied by the lack of the normal records and documentation that is usually available in a fraud case. But the meeting was “so boring!” And so long! “I might have been hungry twice!” Looking back, he thinks now it might have been a mistake. After some debate, they summoned McDonald’s company representatives to Jacksonville to tell them the very, very bad news that they had been scammed, possibly for years, possibly for millions and millions of dollars. “In my world,” he notes, “you don’t believe in coincidences very much.” The district attorney, a man as unflappable as Mathews is excitable, Mark B Devereaux, got interested. It led to a source who told them that the three previous $1m prize-winners may all have had different surnames, but they belonged to the same family. So when he saw a half-buried Post-it note on his boss’s desk reading “McDonald’s Monopoly fraud?” he snatched it up and ran with it. “I’m bored to death of this healthcare garbage,” explains Mathews.
MCDONALDS MONOPOLY SCANDAL FULL
The main business was investigating medical and insurance fraud in a state packed full of retirement homes. In 2001 Mathews was a new agent, bounding around the FBI office in Jacksonville, Florida. “You kinda want to keep him sedated,” says his boss. But he can talk forever,” says fellow agent Janet Pellicciotti. “He’s one of the hardest-working agents I’ve ever met. It is fascinating to watch someone hover so near the border between joyously magnetic and absolutely unbearable – part labrador puppy, part the most annoying kid in class. His name is Doug Mathews, and Hernandez and Lazarte must praise his name every day: he is a gift to the camera and possibly the least filtered speaker in the history of law enforcement.