McDonald's manager steals 29 tons of McNuggets

DALLAS - 43-year old Joe Pelham, manager of a McDonald's restaurant, was arrested this morning after stealing more than 29 tons of McNuggets. Pelham is accused of having elaborated a plan to divert between 20 to 200 kilos of chicken McNuggets for his own personal use from his employer over the last 5 years, from shipments destined to his branch of the fast food giant. The man would of also allegedly taken advantage of his position to falsify orders and sales in order to hide the disappearance of the nuggets from the company's accounts, and to retrieve his loots from the security cameras' tapes.

McDonald's headquarters would have started to suspect Pelham in November 2013 after an anonymous denunciation, forcing them to install new security cameras without informing him. Over the next few weeks, incriminating footage showing the manager taking home bags of McNuggets over bag of McNuggets was captured. After also interrogating a few of the branch's employees, they quickly understood that clearly something shady was going on. He left the company's legal department no choice but to transfer the case and evidence over to authorities, who arrested the accused.

Pelham is now facing multiple counts of fraud, embezzlement and larceny, and faces a sentence of up to 108 years of prison if found guilty on all charges. The accused has also been fired from his job and is not allowed to set foot in a McDonald's restaurant again, a decision explained by the fast food giant as a "major breach of trust" between them and Pelham.

The temporary size limit came at a bad time for McDonald's (MCD).