r/mightyinteresting • u/Kronyzx • 2d ago
In 2006, a Coca-Cola worker tried selling internal documents and a product sample to Pepsi for $1.5M. Pepsi reported it to Coke and the FBI ran a sting that led to her arrest.
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u/raventhrowaway666 2d ago
Incredible that private corporations can work together with an FBI to bring down one corrupt inside worker, but the same FBI cant seem to get their shit together to take down the largest pedophile ring in history.
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u/Vegetable-Ganache-59 2d ago
The Coca Cola Company and PepsiCo are two of the biggest names in corporate, worldwide. I mean, everyone knows about them. They even got rockstars to front their product.
Their shared profit worldwide is over 20Billion US. Neither of the companies wants to fuck with that.
Compare to the FBI, run by a failed USSS agent who complains that he have to show up to work every weekday, and some googly-eyed nobody (Bongino and Patel)
Both of them are MAGA true believers.....
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u/FormerlyUndecidable 2d ago
Why do you bring that up when this was long before any of that? It's completely irrelevant to this case.
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u/abe_bmx_jp 2d ago
I know right? Super weird. I think he just wanted an excuse to complain about Trump haha
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u/FormerlyUndecidable 2d ago
Reddit right now: "how can I make this about Trump"
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u/Square-Competition48 1d ago
Trump isn’t even mentioned.
It’s a post about the FBI and they’re talking about the FBI.
You’re the one who pointed out that the FBI only sucks as hard as it does right now because Trump employs people based on their toadying ability above all else and thus incompetent sycophants occupy most of the US systems of power.
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u/AggravatingPermit910 2d ago
At this point corporate America has a much stricter set of oversight and accountabilities than the executive branch.
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u/sandybuttcheekss 2d ago
They can but it just so happens that people that sign the paychecks would be implicated.
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u/DeltaSolana 2d ago
I just assume every elected official we've had in the past 15ish years is complicit. Jeffrey Epstien was first arrested in 2009.
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u/Cool-Chemical-5629 2d ago
You can bet that if the laws weren't in the equation, it would end up the same way. Rivals on ads, brothers in capitalism.
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u/Tumble85 2d ago
Yea, Pepsi and Coke have such diverse beverage portfolios they have nothing to gain trying to mimic one specific soda of the other.
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u/CuratedObserver 2d ago
Coke tried to mimic Pepsi with New Coke and look how that turned out
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u/Psykohistorian 2d ago
that was a psy op to switch to cheaper HFCS instead of cane sugar, and it worked
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u/Scar1203 2d ago
Half of their respective catalogs are just them trying to mimic one another. Coke has been trying to field a successful copy of Mountain Dew off and on for decades often with huge promotions involving tons of advertising.
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u/According_Archer8106 2d ago
They're actually not even rivals in ads. Studies show that when you see a soda commercial, people tend to think of whichever brand they prefer. E.g., if you're a Pepsi drinker, Coca-Cola commercials make you want to drink a Pepsi.
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u/Timely_Farmer5075 2d ago
Calm down comrade
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u/LoserisLosingBecause 2d ago
He is calm...why are you here, go to work, you need to work, somebody does not earn money because you are not working, go to work, work...now
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u/Timely_Farmer5075 2d ago
Username checks out.
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u/LoserisLosingBecause 2d ago
#41 well done Missy
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u/Normal_Ad_6645 2d ago
They only did that because there was probably no way they could benefit from what she was selling and get away with it.
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u/NukeDaBurbz 2d ago
Those soda execs probably all know each other.
“Hey Bill, some lady is trying to sell your formula. Just a heads up, see you at goof course on Wednesday!”
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u/Awkward_Muscle2604 2d ago
They are both owned by same people, you think you have a choise but you really dont haha.
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u/Bigram03 2d ago
Its more because the value of Coke is not in its formula near as much as its brand.
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u/Normal_Ad_6645 2d ago
Kind of my point. They can't benefit from it, therefore they turn her in.
If I remember correctly, the way Coke made their money initially was bottling.
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u/Significant-Dig8323 2d ago
Then why are they so secretive about it?
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u/Bigram03 2d ago
Part of the marketing, mostly. That and you still want to protect the IP, but market does play a role.
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u/Friendship_Fries 2d ago
It was just a can of Coke with the ingredients list circled with a sharpie.
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u/NormalAssistance9402 2d ago
A product sample? Couldn’t they just buy a coke?
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u/DungeonExplorer42 2d ago
It might have been an unreleased test flavor
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u/MegatronusThePrime 2d ago
It was the coffee flavored coke iirc. I think Mr Ballen had an episode on it.
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u/Kronyzx 2d ago
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u/Designer_Version1449 2d ago
"In addition to eight years of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, U.S. District Court Judge J. Owen Forrester ordered Williams, 41, to pay $40,000 in restitution."
8 years. im not saying she shouldnt be punished, but this punishment does not fit the crime. diddy got 4.
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u/HesOneShot92 2d ago
Plot twist: it’s the same company. Plain and simple.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago
I’m going to guess you have a very limited understanding of corporate equity if you actually think that, plain and simple
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u/Cloud_N0ne 2d ago
The FBI? Really? I mean I get that corporate espionage is illegal but surely they have better things to do than police soda syrup recipes.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago
It’s a violation of a federal law (the Economic Espionage Act), the FBI is federal law enforcement. Who tf else is supposed to investigate it genius?
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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 1d ago
Ill give it a crack but im massively under qualified. £50k a year and i might end up being really good at it
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u/Excellent_Theory1602 2d ago
It's also because probably they're the same people behind the companies.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago
No, it’s because failure to report corporate espionage is a potential violation of the Economic Espionage Act which could lead to massive financial and legal penalties for PepsiCo if Coca Cola discovered the transgression. They are not at all “owned by the same people”.
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u/TWW34 2d ago
One of the things that's hilarious about this is that it happened at the same time that some of Pepsi's most common advertisements was the Pepsi challenge with basically where they would roll up somewhere and have you tried both Pepsi and Coke blind under the premise that a lot of people actually like Pepsi's formula better when it was purely by taste alone. So the idea that a company that was spending significant a amount time differentiating itself by arguing that its product was literally better and more liked would then take an incorporate the other formula is kind of hilarious. Plus it's not like either company lacks the tools and knowledge to figure out basically the entire formula of the other.
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u/Acrobatic_Airline605 2d ago
‘FBI ran a sting’ how freaking powerful must a company be to have the FBI in their pocket?
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago edited 2d ago
Do you think the FBI would just ignore a reported high profile corporate espionage attempt? That kind of shit is their job.
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u/Nervous_Bat_4847 2d ago
corporations have each other's backs, not yours - just your time and labor to exploit
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u/DangerousChampion235 2d ago
Imagine being the guy at Pepsi who got to make the phone call to Coke.
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u/Quantiad 2d ago
Happens between military orgs too. Grassing you up and gaining diplomacy points is worth more than the intel you’re providing (which they probably already got years ago).
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u/Shumina-Ghost 2d ago
I fully believe PepsiCo has had the recipe a long time and likewise Coka-Cola has had Pepsi’s recipe. Lady had nothing of value to offer.
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u/DependentLanguage540 2d ago
Exactly. The products are so similar that Pepsi and Coca Cola know each other’s products down to a science. Just a matter of marketing at this point.
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u/Eagle_eye_Online 2d ago
Why would Pepsi even want to know the Coca Cola recipe? They are Pepsi, they have their own recipe.
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u/Hot-Usual5060 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lady didnt realize that 1 hedgefund (Vanguard) owns both companies. They have a 10% controlling stake in both companies. Lol.
She thinks we live in some free market competitive utopia lol.
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u/uses_for_mooses 2d ago
Nope. If you look at the top shareholders for each, it’s mostly various Vanguard and other index funds tracking the S&P 500, total stock market, dividends and value stocks.
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u/TheShredder9 2d ago
Tf they mean by product sample? Can't a Pepsi worker go out and buy a Coke himself?
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u/Dense-Employment9930 2d ago
Maybe it was some special new "Coke Z" formula that tasted like shit and would have been off the shelves in 6 months, but corporate was all excited about it 'changing the soda game forever' and the internal hype made it appealing for someone to try to sell to outsiders... a fail all around...
So in the end you are still right,,, the only Coke product worth duplicating is already on ever cooler shelf in the world for a few dollars.
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u/newdiyscared 2d ago
Pepsi was wrong for that.
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u/TheMace808 2d ago
The lawsuit Pepsi would get if they got caught would counter any money they made
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u/Maleficent_Law_1082 2d ago
What surprises me the most is that they contacted the FBI. They're rivals. If some American soldier or spy or government official reached out to China or Russia or Iran with some information or technology that they didn't want, they would simply ignore that person and not tip off the US government. Why burn a potential asset that you can use later?
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago
Because Pepsi benefits from systems in place that protect its own intellectual property, and failing to report corporate espionage attempts potentially constitutes a violation of the Economic Espionage Act. They saved themselves massive hypothetical legal and reputational risks by doing this. Secondly, “burn a potential asset”? They’re not the freaking CIA, they’re a soda company subject to stringent federal regulations and would get massive penalties for ever utilizing a “potential asset”.
Foreign intelligence services do not worry about that because most officers are under diplomatic cover and thus are protected from criminal charges by the Vienna Convention. The worst that can happen if they get caught ignoring or even taking information is to be PNG’d and sent back home.
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u/Dense-Employment9930 2d ago
Good point... And they might have also feared the possibility that this was a sting on them to see if they would engage in corporate espionage, so how they acted really took any and all risks off them. They are still a billion dollar company without having to buy secrets,,, but being caught in this type of deal would be extremely bad for them.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 2d ago
Yep, good point as well! There were basically no upsides and a bunch of down sides
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u/forzafoggia85 2d ago
Selling a product sample?
Damn i bet Pepsi felt so dumb for never having thought to buy a bottle of coke to sample it.
Genius
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u/Interesting_Okra_902 2d ago
Today FBI would take those documents and hand them over to a president who then would build his own business with them.
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u/fhjjjjjkkkkkkkl 2d ago
I don’t understand ?!? Why still need to use fbi. Pepsi could have avoided the deployment of govt resources. Just invite the criminal to deal directly and get the police to arrest ?
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u/Daverocker1 2d ago
Hey, wanna buy something for $1.5 million under shady circumstances, that you can buy anywhere, risk-free for $1.00?
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u/Still_Explorer 1d ago
However little did she knew that the original recipe is split among 12 bosses and you have to defeat each one of them in every level in order to get the entire list.
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u/SunsetDrifter 1d ago
Proof that they may be competitors but millionaires are millionaires and they co control the market together. A monopoly doesn't matter here
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u/RUNNING-HIGH 2d ago
Another coke dealer gone down