SURVENT

I had to mention this article on CNN about the three people who tried to steal and sell Coke's secret recipes and prototype product to Pepsi as Idiots of the World.

We have all seen the commercial where the guy who appears to be an intern tries to tell us the secret recipe for Coke Classic and then gets a blow dart in the neck from an Executive. The point to the commercial was that if you try to steal Coca-Cola's secret recipe, they will catch you. These recipes are the bloodline of companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi and they have to take protecting them seriously, so trying to steal them is a bad idea as you will probably get caught.

The suspects include an executive administrative assistant at Atlanta-based Coke, Joya Williams, who is accused of rifling through corporate files and stuffing documents and a new Coca-Cola product into a personal bag.

Williams, 41, of Norcross, Georgia; 30-year-old Ibrahim Dimson, of New York; and 43-year-old Edmund Duhaney of Decatur, Georgia, are charged with wire fraud and unlawfully stealing and selling Coke trade secrets, federal prosecutors said.

Now, these three did in fact get their hands on actual recipes and prototype product. The problem was that the company they tried to sell this to, Pepsi, is one of the few companies in the world who seem to have a moral backbone. Pepsi contacted Coke about the offer of sale and then Coke brought in the FBI.

Pepsi spokesman Dave DeCecco said his company did what any responsible company would do in cooperating with Coke and the investigation.

"Competition can sometimes be fierce, but also must be fair and legal," DeCecco said. "We're pleased the authorities and the FBI have identified the people responsible for this."

I don't know who the theives approached at Pepsi for sale of these items, but I bet a few people there wish they would have shut their pie hole and taken the offer. Can you imagine what they could have done with that information? Actually, it says a lot for the company and the individual to have been responsible and fair enough to alert Coke to the situation. I suppose there could have been some ramifications against Pepsi had they purchased stolen property and used it against Coca-Cola.

Dimson, Williams and Duhaney were arrested in Atlanta on Wednesday, the day the $1.5 million deal was to take place, prosecutors say.

Bummer of a downer for these poor bastards - definite idiots.