McMillion$ The absolutely true story of how an unlikely pair of FBI agents brought down the most supersized fraud in fast food history

James Lee Hernandez

Book - 2024

"In this stranger than fiction story of the massive crime network that rigged the McDonald's monopoly game for decades, unlock new, exclusive interviews and stories that couldn't make it into the HBO docuseries, McMillion$. In March of 2001, Federal prosecutor Mark Devereaux cold-called Rob Holm, the head of security for McDonald's Corporation. Without explanation, Devereaux asked that Holm and several other McDonald's senior executives plan a visit to the Jacksonville, Florida, FBI, and tell no one about their intended destination. It wasn't up for discussion. Upon their arrival, Devereaux watched them closely, looking at body language, checking for tells. To him, they were all potential suspects. Once they we...re seated in an unremarkable conference room, sealed away in the hyper-secure FBI building, Devereaux began to lay out a shocking conspiracy, one that ran deep into McDonald's most beloved promotions: the Monopoly game. This is where they began to discover from 1989 to 2001, almost every high-value prize winner was actually illegitimate. But how could this happen and who all was behind it? A rookie FBI agent and a brilliant undercover operation led them to one man who brilliantly crafted a near-infallible nationwide conspiracy for fraud. Expanded from the wildly popular HBO docuseries with major new interviews, McMillion$ traces this massive crime, the intricate web of lies that bolstered it, and the tireless work of the FBI agents that unraveled it all. It is a story littered with tragedy: families torn apart, betrayals, financial ruin, and one suspicious car crash. Yet, there are bright spots in the hijinks of the FBI agents and their co-conspirators. Ultimately, it is a story of what happens when the American dream goes very wrong."--Publisher.

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Subjects
Genres
True crime stories
Récits criminels
Published
New York, NY : Grand Central Publishing Hachette Book Group 2024
Language
English
Main Author
James Lee Hernandez (author)
Other Authors
Brian Lazarte (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xi, 320 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781538720110
  • Before We Get Started
  • Introduction
  • 1. "McDonald's Monopoly Fraud?"
  • 2. You Deserve a Break Today
  • 3. Piece by Piece
  • 4. Operation Final Answer
  • 5. 'Cause You're Just Lucky!
  • 6. A Day at the Beach
  • 7. Meet the Colombos
  • 8. Gloria Brown: A Real Nice Lady. You'd Like Her
  • 9. Just Call Me Buddy
  • 10. The Two Jerrys
  • 11. Gloria Brown Becomes a Millionaire
  • 12. Lee Cassano and the $100,000 Shake
  • 13. The Church of Fuzzy Bunny's
  • 14. Lee Cassano Spills Her Secret
  • 15. A.J. Glomb Can't Refuse
  • You Deserve a Break Today: How's He Doing It? Part 1
  • 16. The Tale of a Larcenous Heart
  • 17. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
  • 18. Cherchez la Femme
  • 19. Final Winner
  • You Deserve a Break Today: How's He Doing It? Part 2
  • 20. Just the Fax
  • 21. Scenes from Before a Bust
  • 22. Nobody Expects the FBI!
  • 23. Aftermath
  • 24. Knocked Off the Front Page
  • You Deserve a Break Today: How's He Doing It? Part 3
  • 25. A Judge, a Showdown, and Doug Mathews and the Wonderful French Fry Suit
  • You Deserve a Break Today: How's He Doing It? Courtroom Edition!
  • 26. Marvin Braun Tests the Waters and Flushes Away a Million Bucks
  • 27. Rules
  • 28. The Ballad of George Chandler
  • 29. Go to Jail, Do Not Collect $200
  • 30. Speculating on the Informant
  • Epilogue: The Informant Is Revealed
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A twisty tale of a forgotten scam and the devoted FBI agents who brought it down. Documentary filmmakers Hernandez and Lazarte, who created the titular HBO series, recount the strange story of con artistry taken to the stratosphere. The chief con, known as "Uncle Jerry," was a blowhard former cop who talked his way into heading security for an ad agency with an unusual account: handling McDonald's Monopoly game, which readers may remember from a few decades past. For many years, thanks to Uncle Jerry's machinations, "all of the winners who walked into various McDonald's restaurants across the country, waving a winning game piece and claiming a victory over the gods of chance, were cogs in a skillfully crafted conspiracy of fraud." For a time, Uncle Jerry's chief lieutenant was a near-stereotypical gangster from the Colombo Mafia family. The setup involved finding a mark to take a winning ticket and then kick back half, plus pay taxes on the whole shebang. Millions of McDonald's dollars later, the perpetrators had burned a few people in their con. Enter an informant, whose surprising identity the authors reveal at the end, and a forensic accountant from an FBI field office who figured out how to milk confessions from the minions by pretending to be a promotional filmmaker working for McDonald's. The enterprise fell apart thanks to that oldest of destructive forces, greed. "Most of the 'criminals' in this story were merely good people who made a bad choice," the authors write sympathetically; oddly, some paid a higher price for their greed than did the real criminals. In any event, though heavily covered by the media, the scam went into immediate obscurity, overshadowed by the catastrophic attacks of 9/11. Though most of the bad guys are deeply unappetizing, true crime buffs will enjoy the cat-and-mouse game of catching them. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.