Original subtitles

‐ I want some!

‐ It's the Monopoly game, only at McDonald's!

With over 50 million prizes, it's supersized excitement...

‐ Monopoly. Do not pass "Go."

Go directly to McDonald's.

‐ If you were around back in the '90s...

‐ Now at McDonald's, Monopoly is more than a game!

You can play it...

‐ You heard it everywhere.

‐ The game Monopoly is back at McDonald's,

bigger and better than ever.

‐ This year, there's more prizes than ever.

‐ McDonald's ran the Monopoly game for years.

‐ Hey, collect the right game pieces...

‐ And win $2 million. ‐ [gasps]

‐ But no one...

knew the truth about the game being played.

No one.

["Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction]

♪ ♪

‐ People everywhere are winning big!

‐ ♪ I've been caught stealing ♪

♪ Once when I was five ♪

♪ I enjoy stealing ♪

‐ The McDonald's prizes could be cars,

boats, $100,000 up to the million dollars.

‐ ♪ When I want something, man ♪

♪ I don't wanna pay for it ♪

‐ But from 1989 to 2001...

‐ ♪ Hey! ♪ ‐ I won a Dodge Viper!

‐ There were no legitimate winners

of the high value game pieces

in the McDonald's Monopoly game.

I mean, how crazy bullshit is that?

[laughing]

‐ ♪ It's mine ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[waves crashing]

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

‐ Jacksonville FBI had a little bit of a reputation

of being a Sleepy Hollow retirement office.

There was a slower attitude there.

Very undersized.

You know, a fraction

of a Miami or an Atlanta or something like that,

spread, you know‐‐ spread very thin.

[light suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

At the time, in 2001, I supervised a squad

of approximately 12 agents charged with investigating

white‐collar crime, bank fraud,

healthcare fraud, public corruption.

Even before I got there,

I kept hearing about this legendary guy, Rick Dent,

mid‐career senior agent and his partner Doug Mathews,

a newly assigned agent to the division.

‐ I'm Special Agent Mathews.

When you pull Jacksonville as an office you're going to,

I know what I heard was, "Good luck with that."

For big cases, man, you are‐‐ you're like duct‐taping stuff

together just 'cause you wanna make it happen.

That's the type of division you were in.

I was lucky to link up with Rick Dent early on

and have him as the old guard, you know, my training agent.

He's a mathematician and has about as much personality

as this piece of wood right here.

Very matter of fact.

And so he and I were kind of opposites there.

You know, I'm always looking for another fun ride, right?

If you guys get to Rick Dent,

I'm telling you he's gonna be...

"Yes."

"No."

"Don't recall."

♪ ♪

[light music]

The priority for the FBI

at that particular juncture was healthcare fraud.

♪ ♪

We're working a one‐ to three‐year type case.

That's a long time.

Sometimes I have that ADD thing

of the shinier object or whatever.

So I see this note in the corner part of his desk,

and all I saw was "McDonald's Monopoly Fraud?"

with a question mark.

And I go, "What is that?"

'Cause I'm bored to death

of this healthcare garbage, right?

It's important, but I was ready to move on.

I go, "Is this the McDonald's Monopoly game?"

He was like, "Yeah.

Eventually I was gonna get around to it."

♪ ♪

So what he told me was that there was an individual

who had called in and had this story

that the Monopoly game was fixed.

♪ ♪

That was pretty much it.

I go, "Give me that damn thing.

I'm gonna go check this out."

I'm seeing the fun meter with that.

Like, that's gotta be more fun than this shit

that I'm looking at.

Dent thought it was just some BS story...

so, "Pfff, this‐‐yeah, here.

Run with this for a little bit, young man."

I contacted the source of this call,

and the source

gave me three names

that were previous million‐dollar winners

and said, "I know this is fixed because

"these people are related.

"They're on the family tree somehow.

With all different names."

And the person who's controlling this

was this nebulous name of Uncle Jerry.

♪ ♪

So I come back, like, I'm excited right?

I got the biggest case ever, right?

And I said, "Look, all million‐dollar winners.

"We need to be on this.

Screw that health‐‐" I think I probably said that.

"Screw that healthcare shit we're working, right?"

Or something like that. [laughs]

I don't‐‐Rick, I don't know if that was it,

or I know you would never agree with that.

But like any senior agent goes‐‐

and this happens even in today's Bureau.

The new young guy goes out

and finds a nice piece of gold.

The old agent goes,

"Give me that back, and let me look at this."

[laughing] That's about how it was.

‐ Truth be told, I was a little skeptical.

You know, fast food, promotional game fraud

was not making any list of priorities anywhere.

I don't think anybody had really even seen anything

like this before, so...

there's always a risk that I turn these guys loose on this,

and it turns out it's not true

and that I've expended resources,

but you know, I think we all realized...

if this is true, this is, you know‐‐this is big.

‐ What Rick did was immediately get in touch

with the U. S. Attorney's Office and Mark Devereaux,

'cause if you don't have an interest from a prosecutor,

you're wasting your time.

[funky music]

♪ ♪

Devereaux was the go‐to guy

that prosecuted all of our white‐collar stuff.

‐ If there's a chance this thing can be indicted,

prosecuted, even if it's a difficult case,

he's gonna be the guy to do it

because he's the guy behind the wheel.

♪ ♪

‐ That part of the sell, to get that prosecutor on was‐‐

that was a big deal.

I don't know if Devereaux knew what Monopoly game was.

I have no idea.

You know, I think he was a Burger King guy.

I don't know.

♪ ♪

‐ My name's Mark Devereaux, Assistant U. S. Attorney

for almost 30 years.

In this case, it was, you know,

I don't know if this is real, or don't know

if it's just somebody trying to get family members

somehow interviewed and get 'em in trouble.

[dramatic music]

But lo and behold...

when we received a list of all the winners,

we were able to show, through different databases,

that these individuals were related.

They had family connections

in the local Jacksonville area.

In my world,

you don't believe in coincidences very much.

And the chance of having numerous family members

and relatives win the game was just astronomical.

♪ ♪

Basically, you've got less of a chance than you do

of getting struck by lightning in Florida.

[thunderclap]

At that point in time, we knew there was a problem.

How big was that problem? We had no idea.

‐ The information that we were compiling

is that their contest had been infected

years before we became aware.

‐ I mean, we're talking, you know, altogether,

potentially hundreds of millions of dollars

of these prizes.

Well, how much of that is fraud?

♪ ♪

‐ Once Devereaux said, "Yeah, I'm interested in this,"

he's on for everything.

All the strategy sessions.

Some prosecutors, you see that space, you know.

Devereaux, you got no space.

Right all up in there with you.

♪ ♪

‐ So we start with where could there be the opportunity

to steal the game piece?

‐ We weren't sure if there was somebody inside

with McDonald's, where that person was,

how many, and how far that went.

‐ How many suspects do we have?

We have to figure out who makes the cups,

who makes the fry box,

who makes these game pieces that you would pull off‐‐

how many people are in this chain?

‐ There's all kinds of possibilities.

This could be the driver, the delivery people,

people in the factory, or even, you know,

somebody in corporate at McDonald's.

‐ We didn't close out anyone.

♪ ♪

‐ So there reached a point where there was a ton

of questions, but it was, I mean, very difficult

to pursue that further without putting some action to it.

There wasn't a lot of, like, let me just, you know,

at the time get on the Internet and do some‐‐

there wasn't a lot of that.

♪ ♪

‐ We clearly had to start somewhere,

but without compromising the case.

♪ ♪

So we needed a source of information on the inside.

‐ There was a big decision to be made, and that was:

do we contact McDonald's?

Because we just ran into a dead end.

‐ I was sitting back going, "Don't let 'em know.

I don't want them involved yet. Way too soon."

But that's me. And I was‐‐that was just one

little tiny voice, and I mean tiny when I say that.

‐ Of course there's a possibility that somebody

in McDonald's is involved or knows about this

and is looking the other way,

but that was a risk we were willing to,

you know, ultimately willing to take.

♪ ♪

‐ We didn't want to alert

too many people at McDonald's,

so we contacted their head of global security,

Rob Holm, and told him that,

"It would probably be best for you to come to Jacksonville."

Didn't tell him why.

Just told him, "You have to come and see us."

That this was need‐to‐know only.

Do not tell anybody you're coming to see the FBI,

to keep it quiet.

McDonald's sent three people

and I personally picked them up here in Jacksonville,

and we drove over to the FBI office in the morning.

Mostly it was just, "Welcome to Jacksonville,"

this and that.

Didn't even explain to them what we had.

♪ ♪

We got to the FBI office...

♪ ♪

Took 'em up to the conference room...

♪ ♪

‐ You know, you're evaluating their body language

or whether they're twitching.

Are they genuine? Are they legitimate?

Or is there‐‐you know, is there something else going on here?

‐ At that point, we did not know

if McDonald's was involved.

Every organization can have a bad apple.

♪ ♪

‐ This part of the investigation

was extremely boring to me.

Like, I don't want anything to do with this.

"Call me when it's over, Rick," right?

And‐‐which was sort of my M. O. a lot of times.

It's way too slow for me,

but I was‐‐"No, you gotta be here for that."

And I so I think I showed up. I might've had a gold suit on.

[brassy music]

♪ ♪

I had it in the closet,

and I thought, "This is a great opportunity,

when it's like a golden fry suit," right?

Man, when I wore that in there, Mark Devereaux,

if he could've ripped it off with his hands, he would have.

He goes, "Are you kidding me?"

But I had a white shirt on, right?

So I thought I was safe.

[laughs] I wasn't.

‐ Doug has quite a wardrobe, and there he is sitting there.

And lo and behold, he looks like

he's a manager of a McDonald's.

♪ ♪

‐ They thought it was cool.

[laughing]

I'm kidding.

So when you're there in that meeting, very tense.

‐ I went up to a whiteboard and started putting names down.

[dramatic music]

And I asked, "Do you recognize the names?"

‐ "No, sir."

"All these people

are winners on your promotional games."

♪ ♪

And then I started drawing lines

of family connections and relationships.

♪ ♪

‐ Devereaux's putting it right on the whiteboard there.

"Well, did you know this? Do you know this?"

Brothers, sisters, cousins,

a mother‐daughter, that type thing.

‐ This person is married to this person's daughter.

And the names, the last names, were all different.

And I remember it was literally jaws on the table.

They just could not believe it.

‐ Even though we had, it looked like,

our corporate victim here of McDonald's,

are they truly a victim?

I mean, there's always that.

♪ ♪

And so, there was more information there

than I would've probably put out there.

Certainly enough for them to see,

"Wow, yeah, we have an issue."

‐ Everybody agreed that we needed to keep this circle

of individuals that had this knowledge

to the absolute minimum.

‐ You know, Devereaux was doing most the talking

as he usually does, and it just seemed like

this meeting just took forever.

I don't even know if I was hungry;

I might've been hungry twice in that meeting.

‐ Proving this case historically,

which is what we traditionally did in white‐collar cases

when you rely on paperwork,

you rely on witness interviews,

you rely on bank statements, was gonna be very difficult.

I mean, almost monumental.

So we would, in this case, have to think outside the box.

And then we find out that they were on the cusp

of running another game.

It was kind of a perfect fit because we were looking

to doing something proactively,

essentially catch people in the act.

‐ We told them the only way

to identify this criminal enterprise was

to have them run a game knowing that there's fraud

somewhere involved in this.

♪ ♪

‐ We have this. We're going forward.

We want your help.

If the answer is no...

nothing happens.

♪ ♪

‐ My name is Rob Holm,

Director of Global Security for McDonald's.

Our brand is, throughout the world,

37,000 restaurants

in 120 countries.

So it's‐‐it's a big responsibility.

[light music]

♪ ♪

When I first learned about our Monopoly game

being compromised, I was shocked.

I was utterly shocked.

How in the world could this have happened?

More importantly, was anybody from McDonald's a part of this?

♪ ♪

The FBI wanted to run the promotion

knowing that it was rigged.

I was hesitant to do that,

obviously concerned that if this game is rigged,

customers are not even gonna get a chance

to win the million dollars.

‐ I think we were naive to think that they would agree

right then and there and, you know, we'd be off to,

you know, off‐‐off and running.

These promotions were...

of everything McDonald's, one of the bright spots.

You know, I remember the mad cow, and at that time,

McDonald's was, you know,

struggling with some image things.

‐ Concern over Britain's so‐called mad cow disease

spread late today to McDonald's restaurants.

‐ First mad cow, now this.

‐ ♪ McDonald's and you ♪

♪ McDonald's and you, sharing good times ♪

‐ The most important thing for McDonald's

is their brand name.

They're a family restaurant that can be trusted.

Their golden arches are a part of America.

‐ ♪ Remember there's only one McDonald's ♪

♪ And there's only one you ♪

‐ They have to protect that.

‐ ♪ McDonald's and you ♪

‐ And so, if it's on the 6:00 news and the national news

that McDonald's games are a fraud,

they could suffer irreparable damage

to their good name.

I wasn't in their meetings,

but I would bet dollars to doughnuts

that there were a few people that said, "We can't do this.

Shut it off," and nobody ever finds out about this.

‐ They wanted this big meeting.

And so we went out there to Illinois,

at their headquarters.

They got, like, this...

great coffee inside to‐‐

you know, when you walk in their place

and you're waiting on them.

So anyway, I know that's a‐‐aside.

‐ And at that time, we weren't sure

which way they were gonna go.

That was a heck of a decision.

There were so many "what ifs."

What if it's somebody within our own company?

A traitor?

We've got a problem.

They needed to find that out,

because if they had just shut down,

it may have continued.

‐ Look, how many people been playing this thing?

And they're gonna find out we didn't help burn this down.

McDonald's knew they had a ticking bomb.

[elevator dings]

‐ Making that call was something that

we took seriously.

Our worry all along was

that this could be leaked out publically.

So it was not an easy decision,

but ultimately, we owed it to our customers

to do the right thing,

which is to run the game one more time.

‐ We absolutely knew that if we didn't get this right,

we're not getting another opportunity.

It's not like, "Don't worry.

We'll run this again next month."

We knew that, at best, we had this one shot

to move our investigation.

‐ ♪ This is how we do it ♪

‐ From that point, it was literally,

"McDonald's, tell us how this program works."

But McDonald's makes French fries

and hamburgers and milkshakes and apple pies.

They don't make marketing.

They outsourced it.

They hired a marketing company, Simon Marketing.

‐ ♪ This is how we do it ♪

‐ Simon Marketing actually produced and came up with

the Happy Meal toys back in the '80s.

‐ Your kids will love McDonald's Happy Meal.

It's food and fun in a box.

‐ The Happy Meal is gonna increase your business,

but it's for the children.

‐ I've got a Happy Meal!

‐ They wanted a promotion for the adult.

‐ ♪ Like McDonald's can ♪

‐ I'm Richard White,

started at Simon Marketing in 1981.

‐ The game Monopoly has come to life at McDonald's.

‐ The Monopoly game, we designed that game

and it was running once a year.

‐ A $2 million grand prize!

Play Monopoly.

‐ It was a ridiculous amount of increase

in McDonald's business.

Like, 40% when we ran the game.

People love collecting.

‐ The Monopoly promotion

is much like the "Monopoly" game you would have at home.

Customers try to match game pieces,

like Boardwalk and Park Place.

‐ They had their cards, and it'd be full,

but they'd be missing a piece and a piece and a piece...

and a piece and a piece‐‐ 'cause those were

the winning pieces.

‐ And there was low‐value pieces that you could win

food items, beverages,

and then some of the high‐value pieces:

homes, vehicles, and the million dollars.

‐ [gasps] Boardwalk.

all: Boardwalk?

‐ So they were after that million‐dollar winner.

You know, people like chance games.

Any game we did for McDonald's

always increased their business.

We actually did Scrabble one year.

Got to where they started doing it twice a year.

How are we gonna get our sales back up?

Let's run Monopoly again.

‐ ♪ This is how we do it ♪

♪ All hands up in the air ♪

‐ There were very specific rules

for how you could obtain the game piece.

One of the ways was that you could just walk in

and ask, for free, to get a game piece.

Because otherwise it was gambling.

How else can you get the game piece?

You could go in and buy a food product,

and you could get the game piece

out of some of the magazines.

Nowhere in the game rules does it say,

"I can get a game piece from Uncle Jerry."

‐ ♪ This is how we do it ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

‐ With a significant case,

an undercover operation or something that involves

a lot of people, you could give it a name.

So we had a contest to come up with a name

among‐‐among the squad.

Some of the names, uh...

Operation Unhappy Meal, Fallen Arches.

I think there were a few playing on the Hamburglar,

something about Stale Fries.

I don't think we sent that one up

to headquarters for approval.

I think calmer, more rational minds prevailed.

The new promotional game was called,

"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

to match up with the TV show.

‐ Play the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"

game at McDonald's.

‐ If you remember the TV show, they asked,

"Is that your final answer?"

‐ Final answer? ‐ Final answer.

‐ So that ultimately became the name of this operation.

♪ ♪

Game time.

Kickoff has started, and we're in the game.

♪ ♪

‐ At the time, I was always looking for

an undercover angle, even though I was being told,

"You don't want that. You don't want that."

You know, I was always asking,

"What about this one? What about this one?"

Go get the bad guy, right?

I wanna burn down the criminal enterprise.

‐ Maybe it's the‐‐ the accountant in him

or this Walter Mitty complex,

but this was the opportunity

to, you know, be an undercover agent

even before we could articulate the need

to do any kind of undercover‐‐ that there was always this,

you know, somehow, some way,

we gotta do an undercover in this thing.

♪ ♪

‐ Every single meeting, I'm the one over there going,

"Undercover investigation, undercover investigation."

I didn't think anybody was listening.

As a matter of fact, I think a couple of them

started out with, "Mathews, I don't wanna hear anything

"about an undercover investigation.

Just sit over there and listen."

Rick always coined that I was the George Costanza

'cause "Seinfeld" was big back then.

[laughter] ‐ All right, that's it for me.

Take care, everybody.

‐ I'd come in and I'd say, "Undercover,"

and I'm gone, I was out.

‐ You could kind of let him run with things a little bit

and then bring him back to reality.

Okay, "Yeah, that's great, Doug.

"By the way, I still need that FD‐302 you promised me,

"so why don't you go get that done,

and then we'll talk about undercover work."

[phone ringing]

So we get the call from McDonald's that this guy,

Michael Hoover, a winner, had claimed the latest prize.

So we had the advantage of knowing this person's name,

and we're able to do a little bit of preliminary background.

[dramatic music]

Think he worked as a pit boss at a casino.

So I guess he would've been familiar with

gambling and sweepstakes and whatnot.

‐ Rick wanted to try to do the wiretap.

It's a called a Title III investigation, and it's‐‐

the wiretap investigation got up.

And, you know, you're sitting‐‐

you're not really doing anything,

and that's a boring situation for me.

I don't know how many poems I can write

on a piece of paper to get through it.

So I said, "Look, what do you think about this?"

When you win, part of your signing up

as a winner is to say, "Hey, I'm okay with using

my face in the big check," or whatever it is

for future promotions.

So I saw that as an opportunity.

Let's use that as a platform for us.

♪ ♪

I said, "I think this is a great opportunity

"for an undercover investigation where we do

"this TV commercial of the winners

"like Publishers Clearing House.

"Jumping up, telling us how they won these

"and what they did with it, that kind of thing.

"So we could do that with Hoover.

"You know, we're the production company.

That's how this could roll."

He's like, "Mathews, who's gonna do this?

You gonna do it? 'Cause I'm not doing it."

And I said, "Yeah, I'm gonna do it."

He goes, "Well, you don't know anything about that."

And I said, "I'm gonna be the director.

"Because they don't do shit.

"And then I'm gonna get McDonald's to give me

their public relations."

That's all I said.

And Rick goes, "Wait a minute.

"If we're going to do anything,

we're gonna need SAC authority."

♪ ♪

‐ I'm Tom Kneir. I was the special agent

in charge of the Jacksonville office of the FBI.

In each office, you have the SAC for the office.

That's their Special Agent in Charge.

And then you have squads.

Most of the contact is usually with the squad supervisor.

But this was‐‐this was a particular case

that, you know, I had a lot of hands‐on with Chris

and everybody that worked on that case.

Doug was almost brand new at the time,

and he's been given a badge, a gun,

and some credentials,

and now he's got a Superman's cape, right?

[laughing] And away he goes.

‐ So the next day, I think I was called.

And he said, "Hey, you need to come up here."

When you hear your name,

"Mathews to the SAC's office,"

never good.

Never, ever good.

And everybody knows. It's like the walk of shame.

To the elevators, whatever.

"Oh, shit, Mathews.

I hope you still have a paycheck."

'Cause they all know it's bad.

And so I come in and it's SAC Kneir, CDC,

the Chief Division Council, Rick Dent, Graham,

in this room about this size, so small.

♪ ♪

And they all, like, turned to look at me, and I'm like...

And I go, "I'm sorry."

That's all I said.

And Rick goes,

"You know, I think this might work.

And he's gonna do it."

And that right then was probably‐‐if I was ever, like,

concerned about, "I don't know, man.

This might get somewhere‐‐" you know, whatever,

be careful what you ask for, thing?

Maybe that was the moment for me,

but it quickly passed and I was back in.

♪ ♪

‐ We didn't have a lot of undercover agents

in Jacksonville.

You know, you could call headquarters and say,

"Hey, you know, we need a undercover agent down here."

"Well, he's not available for three weeks,"

and, you know. And so we‐‐we'd just

kind of rolled the dice and said, "You know what?

Doug is a little bit of an actor anyway,"

so I guess that's when my hair turned white.

[laughs] No.

‐ Being an undercover agent, it's not just something

you raise your hand and decide to do.

You know, there's a stringent process, a school,

testing, all these things that didn't exactly mesh

with Doug's concept of being undercover.

You know, he wanted to...

wanted to get right up there on stage.

♪ ♪

‐ He was not a certified undercover,

but for a specific case,

you can get what they call SAC authority

to do undercover work, and that's what Doug Mathews

did just for that specific case.

My name's Janet Pellicciotti, and I was a special agent

for the FBI in the Jacksonville Division.

I was our undercover coordinator also,

and I tried to get him to become an undercover agent

because he was just‐‐ he was a natural.

Undercover was like acting, only...

it's real.

You know, you sit there and there's a real threat,

and somebody could harm you.

They could really harm you.

‐ The Jacksonville Division,

if you talk to Agent Pellicciotti,

is a small division that didn't do a lot of this.

‐ Right, so I got to do all the fun

and not have to go through all the bullshit.

Yeah, just make it happen. That's what it was.

"Hey, Mathews, just make it happen."

And I'm thinking to myself...

And then two is...

[jazzy music]

‐ He wanted to be thrown into the lion's den,

and he wouldn't have gotten it if the SAC did not feel

he could handle himself.

So they got some undercovers, you know,

to act as a film crew.

‐ My name is Jan Garvin, and I was videographer.

When I answered his call, he said,

"You're gonna love this."

Not, "Hey, Jan, how's it going?

Let's go, you know‐‐ how was the trip?"

You know, it was like, "You're gonna love this."

And after he explained what it was, it was like...

And...

♪ ♪

‐ We needed to put together what appears to be

a legitimate production company.

A video person, an audio person,

a director and a‐‐ an interviewer.

‐ I go, "Yeah, I need one just to act like

"they're the lighting person or whatever.

"Nobody needs to see that you're Bureau, right?

"So give me somebody that's not stupid, 'cause,

you know, we don't know jack, right?"

In my mind I just thought, you know, just get on the stage

and everything will be fine; you'll just roll right through.

♪ ♪

‐ With any production company

and any good undercover operation,

you need a good name and in this case,

we came up with Shamrock Productions.

♪ ♪

Which is good, but I always liked the byline,

"'Cause you're just lucky."

‐ That was‐‐that was good.

♪ ♪

‐ We thought about having everybody

in this undercover operation be FBI personnel.

They legitimately tried to make that happen.

It just‐‐the way that this scenario had to run,

you needed somebody inside McDonald's

with that background.

That would be hard to fake.

[light music]

♪ ♪

‐ My name's Amy Murray.

I've been with McDonald's for 22 years.

♪ ♪

The FBI investigation happened 17 years ago,

and it's been years since I've talked to anyone,

so, in fact, I don't really tell the story that much

because, you know,

how do you drop into conversation that

you're part of an FBI investigation?

♪ ♪

Back in 2001, I was in the communications department.

I had only been working on Monopoly and games

for about six months.

My boss's boss called me into his office and he was like,

"Amy, the FBI has contacted us.

"They've told us that the game pieces are being stolen

"and that the entire game may be compromised

by a criminal ring."

And if you can imagine, I was completely shocked.

You know, I felt sick to my stomach.

To break that trust was just devastating.

How could this possibly happen?

I started thinking back to all the answers

that I've heard from Monopoly winners in the past,

and it did seem like they were almost scripted.

Hindsight's 20/20, and I started to realize

that it did seem like there was a pattern.

You know, I used that word, "pattern" and I think that

was when the FBI really said,

"It would be great to talk to Amy directly,

since she has so much contact with the winners."

♪ ♪

‐ For a civilian to participate in an undercover operation

doesn't happen much at all, for obvious reasons, right?

It's‐‐if something happens,

you want people who are professionals that are

used to being in situations like that.

‐ I was a little concerned, because I wanted to make sure

that her safety and security was first and foremost.

They said, "Rob, don't worry. She will be safe."

♪ ♪

‐ We really didn't know how far we would have to go

to help the FBI get evidence,

and yes, there were nerves involved,

and I was nervous.

But I was all‐in.

You know, I wanted to make it right as fast as possible.

So I would be talking to the FBI sometimes every day,

sometimes twice a day.

People were intrigued, like, "What's this special project?"

I just couldn't talk about this, not to my family,

not to my closest friends,

not even to coworkers.

‐ We told a couple people

in McDonald's and then our team; that's it.

'Cause we still didn't know, you gotta remember‐‐

like, this investigation‐‐ we still didn't know

if anybody was infected

through corporate, right, or who.

‐ So we set up a time for

Shamrock Productions to go up

and visit Mr. Hoover.

‐ He had already been in contact with Amy,

and he was very amenable to us coming by to film

this commercial that we were putting together.

‐ I'll never forget showing up at an airport,

and a white van pulled up with all of the FBI agents

and, you know, they're like, you know, "Hi, Amy."

And I was introduced to all of them.

You know, I really had to talk to Doug about,

"This is what a producer would do;

this is what the cameraman would do."

And I was just playing myself.

‐ So the first time we're going out there,

I think I had, like, a golf shirt on.

I looked like maybe I'd played nine holes

or something like that.

That's what Amy told me what a director looks like‐‐

looks like somebody that's just come off the golf course.

[laughs] So I'm excited, right?

But I have a lot of apprehension as well.

It's the first one.

You want it to be seamless,

and you don't know what to expect.

‐ As an agent, you know, you wanna carry a gun

and wear a bulletproof vest.

But in a situation like this, an undercover operation,

that may be too much risk.

You can wear an ankle holster and then, you know,

and then you sit down in a chair,

and somebody sees it, so...

‐ You had that little extra antenna going up to make sure

you don't say anything or do anything

that would trigger their suspect to look at you

crossways and go, "Oh, hmm..."

‐ I had butterflies in my stomach.

I was nervous about not wrecking the investigation.

You know, I really wanted to make sure I did a good job,

that I wasn't causing any suspicion.

It's an adrenaline that happens through your system.

You know, you feel fully awake and alive.

♪ ♪

‐ She was very nervous, and I'm like,

"You talk to these people all the time, right?"

"Well, yeah, but not like this."

And I go, "There's not like this.

"You don't know anything about our investigation.

They don't either, so forget about that."

She's laughing, like,

"How am I supposed to forget about that?", right?

And I said, "You got to forget about that

and just do what you normally do."

"We're very close to the exit. We know where it is.

"Just stay as close as you can

'cause I don't know what to expect."

‐ Any civilian that you bring in, you're gonna tell them,

"We have a team. There's always a team outside.

♪ ♪

"If anything happens, they'll be there immediately

to make sure you're safe and secure."

‐ We have distress calls, things like that.

So if the undercover agent says a certain word, you know,

"I feel like a terrible flu is coming on,"

something's really gone wrong; we got a problem.

[knocking]

‐ And so they went to his home.

They came in...

and so you have the FBI agents, unbeknownst to Mr. Hoover,

with the cameras on their shoulder.

‐ If we were set up to record

pretty much anything, we would hit the record button.

You never know what you're gonna capture.

Always gold when they don't know it.

‐ The greatest thing in the world about all this

is what?

We had a camera rolling.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

‐ [laughs] ‐ What was that?

‐ You think you could take that

to your local bank to cash?

‐ I doubt it. [laughs] I doubt it.

‐ [indistinct] We'll do this at the end.

‐ Amy, she, you know, worked her McDonald's magic,

and she had all this confetti popper stuff

and the big check.

We never know whenever we get a call from Amy

sort of where we're gonna‐‐ it's always good to find out

where she always takes us to a different area.

‐ A good surprise.

‐ Yeah, that's definitely childproof.

‐ [laughs] ‐ I mean, it's big check.

I think it was taller than her, actually.

‐ Everything had to seem very natural.

It had to seem like we had done this a million times.

We made sure that I always called Doug, "Doug"

and not "Agent Mathews,"

because it would have been really bad if suddenly

I was like, "Uh, Agent Mathews, can you go do this?"

‐ Amy was really nervous, the whole time.

[laughs] So‐‐which was good.

It was healthy to be that way,

'cause I told her I was too, and I wasn't‐‐you know,

I wasn't lying to her.

She's used to this; I'm not.

Even though I said, "Oh, I got this," right?

She had no idea that I had never done this before,

but I loved it.

‐ There's Mr. Monopoly. ‐ There he is!

All right. ‐ It's gotta be sinking in now.

‐ Now it's official, Ronald McDonald,

the official signature.

‐ Doug Mathews could talk to a wall and get it to respond.

You know, he's got that little bit of a Southern drawl

and everybody sort of likes him.

He's the, "Oh, gosh darn, you won."

‐ There was no risk that somebody's gonna think,

"Well, this guy is an FBI agent,

and this is an undercover operation."

I mean, nobody‐‐ [laughs]

no FBI agent laughs as much as this guy does.

‐ I go, "Wow, this really looks like there's‐‐

it's had a woman's touch here."

I mean, it was all this plaid‐‐just, this shit.

[laughs] Which is probably why I did it.

[laughing]

And, you know, I said all kinds of stuff, I was‐‐

again, I was trying to, you know, move this out,

make everybody seem real comfortable

with uncomfortable things, which is what I'm good at.

♪ ♪

‐ Tell us the story about how you won

at the Monopoly game, everything like that,

in your own words.

‐ Okay.

Um...

day started out pretty peaceful.

It was a day off,

and I went to the beach for a while.

I ended up actually falling asleep at the beach.

And when I woke up, the wind had come up

and I was covered with sand‐‐

not a lot, but a little bit of sand‐‐

and I picked up my belongings, and I headed down

to the water there to kind of wash my legs off

with the sand, and I was a little klutzy.

The "People" magazine... [clears throat]

and my towel fell out of the backpack,

fell into the water, and got all wet.

I ended up, uh... throwing those away

on the way to the car,

and then after...

I was coming home, I decided to stop and get

provisions for dinner.

So I stopped at the McQuade's Supermarket

and picked up a few things,

and I had never got a chance to read the magazine.

And they‐‐there it was right there

at the checkout stand, so I bought one.

And when I got home, I was leafing through it,

and we had the McDonald's Monopoly game,

and it had instant prize winners on it‐‐

or they had the quick pick, whatever you call 'em.

I don't know what they're called.

Uh, and the first one I peeled off, I believe,

was Pennsylvania Avenue.

And the second one I peeled off

was a million‐dollar instant prize winner,

and it was like, "Wow, is this for real?"

And then I, uh... followed the directions

and made the calls and talked to the people, and, uh...

it was for real.

‐ Amy's just used to getting the story.

But for me, I'm putting legs to that.

And he was mentioning some grocery story, and so I go,

"Which one? Is it right here?"

"Hey, can you take us there?"

He goes, "Sure."

You know, he's feeding off the energy part.

No, I wasn't about to stop that.

That was great. It's a field trip, right?

[engine revving]

I'm getting calls, "The fuck are you doing?"

"I mean, why are you‐‐what?" This is, like,

"Are you adlibbing?" And I'd go, "Hey, Jan."

My camera guy, right?

Can you get this?"

"Yeah, I can get it."

[tires screech]

‐ Doug struck me as one of the new breed of agents

who thinks outside the box, if you will.

But he was gung‐ho from the get‐go.

‐ This is where I got the, uh, "People" magazine.

And inside we had the Monopoly game

with the instant $1 million winner,

and it was great; it's fantastic!

‐ Great! ‐ Got it, okay.

‐ He's telling us how he won the prize, all the BS.

His was a magazine‐type thing which, at the time

I didn't even know. I'm looking over, I go,

"Really? I thought you got this off the packages."

‐ And Amy's like, "Did you read any of that

shit I sent you?"

Right, and I go, "Of course I did."

Which I may have glossed over.

So I go, "Hey, what'd you do with the money?"

Why? Because I want to go

seize that stuff, right?

And he's like, "I'm buying a boat."

And so I go, "What name

would you have on the back of your boat?"

And he was like, "Ruthless Scoundrel."

‐ One, two, three!

‐ Thanks, McDonald's.

Hey! [laughs]

‐ So I'm reenacting that, right, and I go,

"So, Michael, you were on the beach?"

"Yes, and it's right here. It's this beach."

And I go, "Really? Take us to it."

And I didn't care what that meant to my camera guy, right?

He's like, "Are you‐‐fuck, are you kidding me?

I gotta‐‐the damn beach?"

‐ There's always somebody

that could respond tactically, if needed.

But if something went south,

between the time something went south

and the time they got there...

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Don't do anything stupid.

♪ ♪

‐ Doug, you know, he was a professional,

but he also did like to have fun.

So he loved to tease me

and kept me on my toes.

‐ This is what makes my fun meter go.

Amy's back there going, "Look at these shoes I have,"

and I'm not looking at shit like that.

I mean, "Take your high heels‐‐ why are you wearing

high heels anyway?"

And she's like, "Are you‐‐"

you know, she was getting on to me about,

"Hey, can you plan this better?"

But I didn't know.

‐ Can you get enough sound

if he tells the story one more time?

‐ You need it?

We could try it. ‐ Okay.

‐ [chuckles] ‐ Anybody noticing you yet?

‐ Not really.

‐ Good.

‐ When Doug's at the house,

it was a controlled environment.

When you're out in the real world,

there's nothing controlled.

You're always a little worried

the operation and the case could be compromised.

‐ Uh, this is where I lost my "People" magazine.

I'm glad that after the beach I stopped

and picked up another one because when I did,

I found the McDonald's Monopoly Game,

$1 million instant prize winner.

‐ Great. Okay, good.

‐ Obviously, you know, this was Doug's very first

undercover, and so you'd wanna try to keep him

under control, keep him sedated,

so to speak.

They don't make it easy.

‐ So I'm like, "Man, I got plenty.

I got enough."

‐ Can I do a couple of artsy things,

okay, real quick?

‐ Hey. [laughs]

‐ You know, he'd stand there smiling, and you know,

you're doing all this artsy stuff,

and then some kid ran up and grabbed the check.

To run away with it.

‐ Like, I'm gonna let this evidence just walk?

No way.

And I'm trucking down the beach...

‐ And it's like, "Dude, it's not real."

‐ It was bad news.

That's not a good problem to have,

being an undercover agent.

‐ And this guy is hammered.

Fortunately, he's running, like,

in a zigzag, so it's easy to catch.

This kid, he was, like, full of sand in his mouth

and crap and I'm like, "Dude..."

[stammers]

"I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this sand."

And he's like, "Man, I just saw, like,

"all those zeros and thought...

I'm just gonna go take it."

And I can't even remember where he wandered off,

but he was out of there; we never saw him again.

[bombastic music]

‐ Sometimes on a case,

being lucky is better than being good.

‐ No Asics, no nothing, and we still caught that dude,

of course, he was hammered, and we were not.

And we did get the check back.

♪ ♪

[engine turns over]

It worked great. Amy was phenomenal.

And I'm like, "Man, undercover is awesome."

[laughing]

Turned out it really tickled our wire up.

Michael Hoover would be on the phones

which is great, because then we were listening

to that and recording it.

You know, again, it got him comfortable.

It actually worked. You know, all that works.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

‐ At that time, I was here in Jacksonville

in the‐‐ what we call wire room.

We were listening in for what we hoped to be

a telephone call to this Uncle Jerry.

And immediately there's a phone call

by Mr. Hoover to Mr. Glomb down in South Florida.

♪ ♪

‐ We were up on three or four phones.

One was this guy, Andrew Glomb.

I mean, Andrew Glomb was the guy with a checkered past.

He had previously convicted for some drug charges

on the federal side with the DEA.

♪ ♪

‐ He had been in a drug trafficking thing.

He was a fugitive for a while, eventually got arrested,

and he did some time.

And so, Mr. Hoover had called Mr. Glomb.

‐ Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

"Hello?" "Yeah, Andy."

That's Andy Glomb.

"Andy, they were here. They believed everything.

"Everything I told them about the winning the ticket

on that 'People' magazine."

‐ "And I was telling them, 'I did this, and I did that.'"

And at the very same time, I'm on my cell phone

talking to Doug Mathews

and telling him, "Listen to this."

♪ ♪

‐ The feeling from him on the phone call was,

"Man, I got them snowed, they bel‐‐"

you know, it was that‐‐ it was that‐‐

I mean, it was perfect.

It's exactly what you're after.

He's talking, "Man, you're not gonna believe it.

"This director asked about the name of my boat

and I said, 'Ruthless Scoundrel.'"

And they're just laughing on the phone,

how much‐‐how funny that was to them because they knew

they had lied and had stolen this money from McDonald's.

‐ In that call, effectively what he's doing is confirming

beyond any doubt that, you know, he didn't win it.

♪ ♪

‐ It just doesn't get any better than that.

It's like high fives.

‐ That was why you get up on these wiretaps.

So we're hearing how they did it.

♪ ♪

At the time, we didn't know how big this was.

We knew of some, but we didn't know it all.

It was amazing to me how little we did know.

[phones ringing]

♪ ♪

The spider web of all‐‐ like, we had this Uncle Jerry.

Everything was very general, nebulous.

We still didn't know, you got to remember, like,

we still didn't know who this Jerry person was,

if there even was a Jerry.

So all of the newer agents, we were on the wiretaps

to find out more about the depths of this scheme.

‐ Back then I was a new agent,

and my first assignment when I was brought in

was to work the wire.

The Title III has to be monitored full‐time, 24/7.

You hear the phone call, you grab your headset,

you put it on, you listen to the call.

‐ We're listening in the wire room

and I'm hearing, you know, the name Uncle Jerry

thrown around on the phone.

"Uncle Jerry, Uncle Jerry.

You don't wanna make Uncle Jerry upset."

‐ Well, I do remember clearly feeling like

I was in New York and I was listening to a mobster

talking about running his mafia empire,

some mafia don, 'cause that's kind of how this guy came off.

♪ ♪

‐ So we had to find Uncle Jerry.

I mean, how do you do that?

♪ ♪

‐ We did an analysis

of phone records from past winners.

You look for that common number.

‐ We knew when they won the prizes, what year,

and we could probably cord it off to a month, so I think‐‐

I think we backed up two and went forward two.

♪ ♪

And we went and pulled the phone numbers coming in

and going out for this period of time.

♪ ♪

‐ Lo and behold, each of their phone numbers

were calling common numbers.

‐ We saw the activity heavy coming in right before

the prize was awarded or claimed,

and then heavy right after it, and then nothing.

And then none of them were related;

they didn't know each other.

All were hitting that number.

♪ ♪

‐ All these phone calls include one person...

♪ ♪

Jerome Jacobson.

Also known as...

Jerry Jacobson.

The absolute head of security for Simon Marketing.

♪ ♪

[funky music]

♪ ♪

[bright tone]

There was a wide net of individuals who were willing

to participate in this fraud scheme.

♪ (UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS) ♪

WOMAN: It got really big, really fast.

There was one nagging question mark...

Who is Uncle Jerry?

(CASH REGISTER DINGS)

We were racking up incredible evidence

and discovering new people.

We found out that there was another Jerry involved in this.

MAN: He took this little, small operation,

and made it huge.

As soon as I got that check, things changed.

"You gonna ride with us, and you gonna do what we say.

And you gonna do it right."

I'm not a dumb person, but I did a dumb thing.

No one can stand in front of a mirror and say

they've never done something...

that they wish they could take back.

I'mma lay all my cards on the table and tell everything.

MAN 2: We were just building the puzzle from all the pieces.

(POLICE SIREN BLARES)

MAN 3: We started finding other middle‐men.

The money got too big to not take a bigger piece of that pie.

It could've been a possible hit to get him out of the situation.

WOMAN 2: A little teardrop came down my face.

I thought, "I'm never gonna get out of this."

(CASH REGISTER DINGS)

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪