Life Imitates "Seinfeld"

In Michigan, you can return empty soft drink cans for a ten cent refund. Apparently it's against the law to bring cans in from other states and attempt to get the refund. In the Detroit area, police arrested 13 people and seized more than $500,000 in cash after breaking up a smuggling ring. The accused supposedly collected millions of beverage containers in other states and cashed them in for 10 cents apiece in Michigan.

This is straight out of Seinfeld, from the 1996 episode "The Bottle Deposit", in which Kramer and Newman attempt the same scam.