Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - She Stole Coca-Cola Secrets Worth $1.5 Million Dollars - The Joya Williams story

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

Joya Williams stole company secrets from her employer Coca-Cola and tried to sell them to Pepsi for $1.5 million dollars.

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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. And one day, Joya's 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. And 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.

And 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 she floats the idea to him. Like, I'm going to steal Coke's secrets and sell him to Pepsi. And Edmund, he's an ex-convict. He recently got out of prison. So when he hears Joya's idea, he's like, I.

Then 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 she 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! So Edmund, he thinks about it and eventually he's on board.

He's like, I think I know someone who could help us. And that is when he calls his friend in New York City to help him. This guy, Ibrahim. And Ibrahim is a guy who went to prison with Edmund, so he has no issue getting involved in this. So Edmund calls him and he 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. And Ibrahim sees the stolen materials and he's like,

well, these look legit. And so they move forward with their plan to sell these Coca-Cola secrets. And 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. Then they put it into an official Coca-Cola envelope

that Joya had stolen, and they mail it to the senior version vice president of insights and innovation at Pepsi. A few days later, senior vice president, he gets the letter and he reads it and he's like, what the fuck is this? And even though Pepsi could really benefit from these stolen Coca-Cola secrets, this exact 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. And the execs at Coca-Cola are like, the fuck and they immediately report all of this to the FBI so now the FBI's involved and they set up this

whole sting operation and they get a special agent to pose as a Pepsi executive and go undercover and we'll just call this fake Pepsi executive undercover agent so undercover agent calls the number on the letter and Ibrahim picks up an undercover agent tells him yeah we here at Pepsi are interested in the Coca-Cola secrets you got so Ibrahim Edmund and Joya are like Hell yeah, we did it! We're gonna be rich! And the next day, Ibrahim faxes undercover agent of 14-page sample of the highly classified Coca-Cola secrets. And he's like, 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 $10,000. But Undercover Agent's slick. He doesn't send him anything. He just keeps stringing him along for like weeks. Until 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 now 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 Coke 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, and they also catch her stealing a product sample, which in this case, allegedly, the product sample she steals is called Coca-Cola Black, which is Coke infused with coffee. And at this time, Coca-Cola Black hasn't been released to the public or even announced yet. But anyway, then undercover agent reaches out to Ibrahim and he asks him to set up a time when they can meet.

And Abraham and Edwin and Joya, they have no idea the FBI is on to 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 pumped. They're like, hell yeah. Then the day of the meat comes, and Ibrahim drives to the airport because that's where they're supposed to meet. An undercover agent is there, and Ibrahim gives him a bag of confidential documents and a glass bottle with the product sample in it. And in return, 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, and then he tells him, and you'll get 45,000. $5,000 more after we analyze the product sample. And then Edmund picks Abraham up from the airport and Abraham's like, bro, it worked! And 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 Abraham's phone.

And they're recording all the calls and messages between Abraham and Joy. 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. And then the trio makes another move. Ibrahim emails undercover agent, and he tells him that he has 20 more highly confidential materials in his possession. And undercover agents like, cool, we want them. And they start negotiating the price. An undercover agent posing as this Pepsi exact, he tells Abraham he'll pay him 1.5.

million dollars for these new Coca-Cola secret documents. And Ibrahim is like, fuck yeah! And so they set a time to meet up and make this exchange. A few weeks later, the time has come to finally meet. And Edmund drives Ibrahim to the meeting spot at a restaurant at the local Marriott Hotel, and Ibrahim goes inside while Edmund waits in the car. And inside the restaurant, Ibrahim sits down to the table with undercover agent, And they chat a little and they agree on the amount one more time.

$1.5 million. Then they shake hands and Ibrahim leaves and he walks toward Edmund's car. And then, kaboom, suddenly they're surrounded by FBI agents. And bam, Abraham gets arrested. And then, bam, Edmund also gets arrested. And then, bam, the FBI goes and arrest Joya too. Here's Joya's mugshot. And here's Ebrahim's mugshot.

And I couldn't actually find a... 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. And Joya gets sentenced to eight years in prison. Ibrahim gets sentenced to five 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.