The wonderful world of industrial soft-drink espionage. Three employees of Coca-Cola Inc. are under arrest for attempting to sell trade secrets (and a sample of a new drink — what can they add cherry and vanilla to this time?) to rival Pepsi.

The details of the plot: a mysterious informant writing from the Bronx and identifying himself only by the name ‘Dirk’ wrote PepsiCo, claiming to be a high-level employee with Coca-Cola. He asked for $10,000 for the trade secrets and $75,000 for the recipe. PepsiCo called the fuzz, an undercover agent offered Dirk 1.5m for other trade secrets, Dirk fell for it, and now he’s in jail. All is right with the world; the secret Coke formula, like the recipe for McDonald’s Big Mac sauce, remains sacrosanct.

The leak apparently all came from an executive assistant for a high-level Coke executive, who supplied ‘Dirk’ with his documents and information after he seduced her. No word on whether she’s been fired yet, but all signs point to ‘Canned.’

3 charged with stealing Coca-Cola info [Yahoo News]

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