The McDonald's Monopoly Fraud Investigation Revealed

In March 2001, federal prosecutor Mark Devereaux, a special assistant U.S. attorney, contacted Rob Holm, who led global security for McDonald's in Chicago. Devereaux asked Holm to travel to the FBI office in Jacksonville, Florida, without giving a reason. Holm went there with McDonald's marketing and legal leaders. In the FBI meeting room, Devereaux and three agents met them and began discussing an investigation connected to McDonald's promotional Monopoly-style game. Devereaux wrote many names on a whiteboard. Holm did not recognize any of them. The prosecutor explained that these people were supposed to be the winners of top prizes in the McDonald's game.

The prizes included cars, jet skis, Super Bowl trips, and cash from $25,000 to $1 million. However, Devereaux pointed out that the listed winners had different surnames but were actually linked through family ties or marriage. Investigators found that between 1989 and 2001, almost all major prize winners were not genuinely random. Instead, they had used stolen game pieces to claim prizes. This meant ordinary customers who played fairly had almost no real chance of winning major rewards, even though they believed the game was fair.

Devereaux asked McDonald's to continue running the promotion to help the investigation. After Holm returned to Chicago and spoke with CEO Jack Greenberg, McDonald's agreed to cooperate with the FBI. The company planned to run one final round of the game from April to June 2001 to support the investigation and gather more evidence. Later, investigators expanded the case and examined how stolen game pieces were distributed and used. They also reviewed how winners were selected and how prize claims were approved. The findings showed that the promotion system had serious weaknesses that allowed fraud to continue for many years. McDonald's cooperation helped authorities collect more evidence and understand the full scope of the scheme, including how individuals connected to the operation benefited from the prizes and how the deception was maintained over time.

FBI Investigation into McDonald's Monopoly Game Fraud

FBI special agent J.D. "Doug" Mathews, 29, wanted an exciting undercover job, but his training was in accounting. He joined the FBI and worked in the Jacksonville office, focusing on insurance fraud. Rick Dent supervised Mathews. In March 2001, Mathews asked about a Post-it note belonging to Dent that showed a phone number and the question, "McDonald's Monopoly fraud?" Dent said the query came from an informant who called a civilian tip line. Mathews was not impressed and asked the informant for more details about the alleged fraud. He learned that three of the $1 million winners were related or lived near each other. They also used game pieces from a person known as Uncle Jerry.

Phone records suggested Uncle Jerry might be Jerome Jacobson, a security head at Simon Marketing, which ran the Monopoly game for McDonald's. Jacobson had been a police officer in Hollywood, Florida. Before joining Simon in the late 1980s, he worked at Dittler Brothers, a company that printed lottery tickets and game pieces. A McDonald's security review had previously shown strong safety at these companies. But after the Jacksonville meeting, investigators believed there was a serious breach. In April, Mathews suggested an undercover plan to FBI colleagues. He proposed inviting fake winners to a Las Vegas event sponsored by McDonald's and then arresting them.

Dent and other agents did not agree with this plan. Instead, the FBI monitored the winners, starting with Michael Hoover, who had won $1 million. Because McDonald's required winners to appear in promotions, Mathews suggested FBI agents pose as a video crew called "Shamrock Productions" to film Hoover. The head of McDonald's publicity, Amy Murray, joined the crew, making her a rare non-FBI participant. On camera, Hoover gave a false story about how he found the winning piece in a magazine. The FBI then decided to use the same filming setup to interview other winners.

The investigation showed that the McDonald's Monopoly game was compromised by insider fraud involving a security worker who distributed winning pieces to people connected to him. The FBI used undercover methods and filming setups to gather evidence from the winners. The operation shifted from a planned arrest to careful monitoring and staged interviews. The case highlighted weaknesses in the security of promotional games and showed how inside access can be abused. It also demonstrated how agents adapted their strategy when initial plans were rejected by supervisors. This investigation led to stronger oversight of promotional security systems later implemented.

McDonald's Monopoly Fraud and the Colombo Connection

In 1995, a McDonald's television advertisement for the Monopoly promotion featured a man named Gennaro "Jerry" Colombo, who appeared to be a lucky winner of a Dodge Viper car. In reality, Jerry Colombo had ties to one of New York City's Italian Mafia families. His personal life was already tense because he had married Robin Fisher, who was not Italian. His family strongly disapproved of her, and conflict grew when their first child was not named after Jerry's grandfather. This led to a temporary break in contact until Robin agreed to rename their son Francesco Gennaro "Frankie" Colombo instead of Gennaro Colombo Jr.

Jerry Colombo received what he believed was a winning McDonald's Monopoly game piece from a relative known as "Uncle Dominic." He chose to take the cash option worth $53,000 instead of a prize. Before dying, Uncle Dominic revealed that the game pieces actually came from Jerry Jacobson, who was part of a larger fraud scheme. Jerry Colombo and Jacobson then became connected through this illegal activity, and Robin was asked to keep their involvement secret. At the same time, the FBI was running a hidden investigation into McDonald's Monopoly fraud. They used a fake production company called Shamrock Productions to film interviews and gather evidence.

One of the people interviewed was Gloria Brown, who claimed she found a $1 million winning piece in South Carolina. Her story was part of the controlled setup used by investigators. Another participant, William "Buddy" Fisher, was also involved in presenting a false winning story. He was under pressure while filming because he had to explain how he supposedly won $1 million. His daughter Robin had married Jerry Colombo, even though Fisher did not approve of him. To improve relations, Robin arranged for Jerry to give Fisher a winning game piece, which allowed Fisher to claim the prize.

By the late 1990s, the FBI expanded its investigation. They monitored phone calls and conducted surveillance on Jerry Jacobson and several connected individuals. They had not yet fully linked Jacobson to Jerry Colombo's resale of winning pieces, where Colombo sold them for half the prize value. Since McDonald's paid large prizes in $50,000 yearly installments over 20 years, Colombo would earn about $25,000 per year from each fake winner he supplied.

In 1998, Jerry Colombo tried to move away from illegal gambling and open a legal business. He started a strip club called Fuzzy Bunny's, but local authorities refused permission for that type of business at his chosen location. In response, he used a public stunt, renaming it "The Church of Fuzzy Bunny's" with signs claiming "Mass 7 Nights a Week." The attention upset Jerry Jacobson, who complained about Colombo's behavior.

Around the same time, Jerry and Robin had a serious argument while driving. A truck then hit their vehicle. Robin and their son Frankie were not seriously injured, but Jerry was badly hurt. After several days of internal bleeding, he was taken off life support and died. His family blamed Robin for what happened. Robin later struggled with addiction and legal trouble. She was eventually jailed for fraud, and Frankie was raised by Jerry's parents, who tried to distance him from his mother.

McDonald's Monopoly Scam and FBI Investigation

In 1998, Andrew "A.J." Glomb moved from Pittsburgh to Miami looking for excitement. In Orlando, he met Don Hart, who gave him a McDonald's Monopoly game piece said to be worth $1 million. Hart expected Glomb to share any winnings. Glomb later became involved in a group that recruited people who were presented as Monopoly prize winners, working with Jerry Jacobson. The FBI investigated the scheme and prepared to arrest eight suspects. Before the arrests, a mistake occurred when a 30-page FBI report describing the plan was faxed to the Greenville News in South Carolina. Authorities then asked the newspaper to delay reporting the story until after arrests were made.

On August 19, 2001, FBI agents arrested A.J. Glomb, Gloria Brown, Michael Hoover, and Jerry Jacobson. Robin Colombo was already in jail for credit card fraud when she was informed of the case. Agents told her that refusing to cooperate could affect her custody of her child, so she agreed to help. The eight suspects had already collected about 13 million dollars in prizes. After the arrest, many cooperated with investigators in exchange for possible reduced punishment. Their information led to 53 indictments across 23 states involving attempts to fraudulently win about 24 million dollars from McDonald's Monopoly game.

News about the case received heavy attention at first, but coverage quickly decreased after the September 11 attacks shifted media focus. The case became one of the largest fast food promotion fraud investigations in US history, ever recorded in modern law enforcement records.

Monopoly Game Piece Fraud and the FBI Investigation

Jerry Jacobson worked in security at Simon Marketing and helped manage Monopoly game pieces used in McDonald's promotions. He worked with company accountant Hilda Bennett, who traveled with him when he carried a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist containing the game pieces. Security rules required them to stay together, but she did not enter airport bathrooms where Jacobson would secretly open the briefcase locks. Inside were sealed envelopes holding up to 50 game pieces, including one that could be exchanged for a top prize. He removed winning pieces and replaced them with common ones that only gave small rewards like free fries, then resealed everything.

In total, 53 people were indicted, and 46 pleaded guilty, including Jacobson. A trial in 2022 involved seven remaining defendants, and Jacobson testified for the prosecution about how he stole and sold winning pieces. He said he sold about 60 winning pieces and received kickbacks of $45,000 or $50,000 for each from the winners. He claimed his total earnings over ten years reached around $3 million from the scheme. The identity of the original informant who alerted the FBI was not revealed during the trial and remained undisclosed by officials.

It was later revealed that the informant was Ma Colombo, mother of Jerry Colombo and Frank Colombo. She did not accept Robin as Jerry's wife or support her grandson Frankie, which influenced her decision to contact the FBI. Her call started a large FBI investigation into a fraud scheme that involved many people across the country, including members of her own family. The case showed how a trusted employee used access to game materials to change outcomes and earn illegal profits over many years. It also revealed how inside knowledge and weak oversight allowed the scheme to continue without detection for a long time.