So, this woman is about to try and steal Coca-Cola secrets and sell them to Pepsi for $1. 5 million. Now, her name is Joya, and Joya's got a great job; she works at Coca-Cola as the secretary to the global brand director.
But Joya's got a problem: she feels like she works hard for Coke, but she also feels like she never gets the appreciation she deserves. She feels like everyone there treats her like she's stupid. One day, Joya has had enough.
She is done with Coca-Cola, but she's not going to quit. Instead, she comes up with a plan to screw them over and make herself a little bit of money. She's going to steal Coca-Cola's valuable trade secrets, like their secret formulas and stuff, and she's going to sell them to Pepsi.
Now, obviously, Pepsi is Coca-Cola's biggest competitor, and they could really benefit from getting their hands on some of these trade secrets. The more Joya thinks about it, the more she commits herself to this idea, and her position at the company gives her access to all sorts of confidential materials: top-secret marketing plans and new product samples, stuff like that. But there's an issue; Joya can't sell the secrets to Pepsi herself because she works for Coke, and they'll be able to trace the crime back to her.
So, she decides she needs a middleman. One day, she's at Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of people, and one of her friends is there—this guy, Edmund. So, she pulls Edmund aside and floats the idea to him: "I'm going to steal Coke's secrets and sell them to Pepsi.
" Edmund, he's an ex-convict; he recently got out of prison. So, when he hears Joya's idea, he's like, "I’m in. " Later, while she's at work, Joya collects copies of some highly confidential materials, and she starts taking these documents home with her.
She also copies some documents onto some jump drives and sneaks those home as well. Then, a few weeks later, Edmund goes to her house, and she shows him the goods. She's like, "Look what I got.
" Edmund thinks about it, and eventually, he's on board. He's like, "I think I know someone who could help us. " That is when he calls his friend in New York City to help him—this guy, Ibrahim, who went to prison with Edmund, so he has no issue getting involved in this.
Edmund calls him and fills him in, and a few months later, Ibrahim flies from New York City all the way down to Atlanta to check out the materials Joya stole in person. Ibrahim sees the stolen materials, and he's like, "Well, these look legit. " They move forward with their plan to sell these Coca-Cola secrets.
First, Ibrahim writes a letter to Pepsi claiming he's a high-level employee at Coca-Cola, and in this letter, he offers Pepsi the opportunity to buy Coke's confidential trade secrets from him. They put it into an official Coca-Cola envelope that Joya had stolen, and they mail it to the senior vice president of insights and innovation at Pepsi. A few days later, the senior vice president gets the letter and reads it, and he's like, "What the [ __ ] is this?
" Even though Pepsi could really benefit from these stolen Coca-Cola secrets, this exec decides that this is all very wrong, and he wants no part of it. So what does he do? He faxes this information right over to the execs at Coca-Cola and basically snitches on these guys.
The execs of Coca-Cola are like, "What the [ __ ]? " and they immediately report all of this to the FBI. Now the FBI is involved, and they set up this whole sting operation.
They get a special agent to pose as a Pepsi executive and go undercover—we'll just call this fake Pepsi executive "Undercover Agent. " So Undercover Agent calls the number on the letter, and Ibrahim picks up. Undercover Agent tells him, "Yeah, we here at Pepsi are interested in the Coca-Cola secrets you got.
" Ibrahim, Edmund, and Joya are like, "Hell yeah, we did it! We're going to be rich! " The next day, Abdul faxes Undercover Agent a 14-page sample of the highly classified Coca-Cola secrets, saying, "There's a lot more where that came from, buddy.
" But Ibrahim isn't exactly sure Undercover Agent is really serious about this deal, and he wants him to prove that he is. So he asks Undercover Agent to send him $110,000. But Undercover Agent's slick; he doesn't send him anything.
He just keeps stringing him along for weeks. A few weeks into the negotiations, Ibrahim is really trying to make this deal go through, so he offers to get Pepsi—aka Undercover Agent—a product sample, like a flavor of soda that hasn't been released yet. By this point, Undercover Agent and the rest of the FBI have been working hard behind the scenes to crack this case, and they've been looking at Coca-Cola employees who could potentially be involved.
One of the employees they've been low-key looking at is Joya because she's one of the few people who has access to all this confidential material. So, in the Coca-Cola building, they set up hidden cameras near her desk, and later those cameras end up capturing footage of her stealing documents and putting them in her bag. They also catch her stealing a product sample, which, in this case, is allegedly called Coca-Cola Black, which is Coke infused with coffee.
At this time, Coca-Cola Black hasn't been released to the public or even announced yet. Anyway, then Undercover Agent reaches out to Ibrahim and asks him to set up a time when they can meet, and Ibrahim. .
. And Edwin and Joya, they have no idea the FBI is onto them, and they have no idea this Pepsi exec they're talking to is an undercover FBI agent. So when he reaches out to them to set up a time to meet, they're like, "Pump!
" They're like, "Hell yeah! " Then the day of the meet comes, and Ibraham drives to the airport, 'cause that's where they're supposed to meet. An undercover agent is there, and Ibraham gives him a bag of confidential documents and a glass bottle with the product sample in it.
In return, the undercover agent hands him a yellow box of Girl Scout cookies. Now, instead of cookies in this box, it's actually got $30,000 stuffed in it. I don't know why they used a Girl Scout cookie box, but anyway.
Then he tells him, "And you'll get $445,000 more after we analyze the product sample. " Then Edmund picks Ibraham up from the airport, and Ibraham's like, "Bro, it worked! " He hands Edmund his cut of the money, and he also gives him Joya's cut of the money.
By the way, Edmund allegedly pockets a couple of grand from Joya's cut of the money before he gives it to her. So, never trust a thief, I guess. So anyway, then the FBI starts wiretapping Ibraham's phone, and they're recording all the calls and messages between Ibraham and Joya and Edmund, and they're getting more and more footage of Joya sneaking documents into her bag, so their case is about to be airtight.
Then the trio makes another move: Ibraham emails the undercover agent and tells him that he has 20 more highly confidential materials in his possession. The undercover agent's like, "Cool, we want them," and they start negotiating the price. An undercover agent, posing as this Pepsi exec, tells Ibraham he'll pay him $1.
5 million for these new Coca-Cola secret documents. Ibraham is like, "Hell yeah! " So they set a time to meet up and make this exchange.
A few weeks later, the time has come to finally meet. Edmund drives Ibraham to the meeting spot at a restaurant at the local Marriott Hotel. Ibraham goes inside while Edmund waits in the car.
Inside the restaurant, Ibraham sits down at the table with the undercover agent, and they chat a little. They agree on the amount one more time: $1. 5 million.
Then they shake hands, and Ibraham leaves. He walks toward Edmund's car, and then, kaboom! Suddenly, they're surrounded by FBI agents.
Bam! Ibraham gets arrested, and then bam! Edmund also gets arrested, and then bam!
The FBI goes and arrests Joya too. Here's Joya's mugshot, and here's Ibraham's mugshot. I couldn't actually find a mugshot for Edmund or any pictures of him online for that matter.
But anyway, they're all charged with conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets. Joya gets sentenced to 8 years in prison, Ibraham gets sentenced to 5 years in prison, and Edmund gets no prison time because he testified against the other two. So shout out to Coke and Pepsi, I guess, and a huge shout out to leonardo.
da!
