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Jerome Jacobson and the Monopoly pieces
The man responsible for security at the printer took the winning pieces for twelve years.
$24mIn McDonald's prizes diverted to people he knew.
Jacobson worked for the firm that printed McDonald's Monopoly game pieces, and his job was to secure the high-value ones in transit. He took them instead, starting with a $25,000 piece and escalating to the million-dollar ones.
He sold them through a network of friends, relatives, a psychic, a former convict and eventually organised crime associates, who provided winners in exchange for a cut. Almost every "winner" of a major prize in that promotion for over a decade was recruited.
The FBI investigation, Operation Final Answer, ended with over fifty convictions. McDonald's was a victim — it ran an immediate $10 million giveaway to make good — but the promotion never fully recovered its reputation.