The soft-drinks makers have been battling ever since Caleb Bradham, of North Carolina, came up with Pepsi-Cola, originally called just “Brad’s Drink”, to rival Coca-Cola, which was concocted by John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, seven years earlier in 1886.

When PepsiCo received a mysterious letter in May offering “very detailed and confidential information” on Coke, the company quickly tipped off its main competitor.

The FBI mounted a sting operation and made three arrests — including the secretary of a top Coke executive — on the day that a $1.5 million (£800,000) payment was to be made. “Competition can sometimes be fierce but also must be fair and legal,” a spokesman for Pepsi said. “We’re pleased the authorities and the FBI have identified the people responsible for this.”

Pemberton, a medicine inventor and morphine addict, created Coca-Cola out of a secret mixture of coca-leaf, a stimulant, and African kola nuts, which contain caffeine.

He originally sold it as Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, a knock-off of the popular Mariani wine, favoured by Queen Victoria, made by adding cocaine to low-grade Bordeaux. When Atlanta declared Prohibition in 1886, he recreated his beverage as a “temperance drink” and called it Coca-Cola.

In 1893 Bradham created a concoction intended to cure stomach pains, or dyspepsia. It contained pepsin, a digestive enzyme from pigs’ stomachs. It became Pepsin Cola in 1896 and then Pepsi-Cola in 1898.

The two brands have vied for world supremacy ever since. Coke always had the edge, marketing itself with ads such as “Accept No Substitutes” and “The Real Thing”. Coca-Cola maintains its lead over Pepsi in carbonated drinks. The alleged offer to sell Coca-Cola’s trade secrets came in a letter to PepsiCo from a man calling himself “Dirk”. An undercover FBI agent contacted the man, who provided 14 pages of classified Coke documents. “Dirk” asked for $10,000 but agreed to $5,000 plus $75,000 for a sample of a new Coke product. The agent gave him $30,000 upfront and offered $1.5 million for “additional trade secrets”.

Investigators identified “Dirk” as Ibrahim Dimson and traced his information to Joya Williams, who reportedly worked for Coke’s global brand director, prosecutors said. Security video allegedly showed Ms Williams stuffing files into her bags and taking a container of a Coca-Cola product sample.

Ms Williams, 41, Mr Dimson, 30, and Edmund Duhaney, 43, were charged with fraud and stealing trade secrets. Mr Duhaney and Mr Dimson served time together at an Alabama jail, where Mr Duhaney spent five years for cocaine possession and Mr Dimson a year for conspiracy to commit fraud.

CocaCola thanked PepsiCo for its help. The company said that its secret formula, containing the ingredient “7X”, was never at risk.

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