How were they caught?

In March 2000, according to The Daily Beast, the F.B.I. received an anonymous phone tip: Someone named “Uncle Jerry” was rigging the McDonald’s Monopoly promotion, stealing game pieces from the inside and selling them.

Special Agent Richard Dent, based in the F.B.I.’s Jacksonville office, contacted a McDonald’s spokeswoman, Amy Murray, who began trying to verify the winners. One winner — Colombo’s father-in-law, who claimed $1 million from the contest — told Murray that he lived in New Hampshire, but property records in Jacksonville proved otherwise. Gloria Brown, Murray found, was also having her annual checks delivered to a Jacksonville address.

Dent launched an investigation that would rope in 25 agents nationwide. He found his big lead in 2001, when he mapped out the addresses of three winners — all of whom lived within miles of Jacobson’s South Carolina lake house.

Dent convinced McDonald’s to run one more Monopoly promotion, so the F.B.I. could track down the final evidence it needed. The move was fraught with legal risks — the corporation, in its collaboration with federal investigators, already knew at this point that its game was compromised.

The decision paid off, allowing Dent to pin down Andrew Glomb for the first time. Colombo, though, died after a car accident in 1998. The F.B.I. arrested eight major suspects on Aug. 22, 2001, and charged Jacobson with conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

What’s happened since?

There’s a reason the scheme didn’t last long in the public’s memory: The trial, in Jacksonville, started on Sept. 10, 2001, and was quickly overshadowed by the events of Sept. 11.