Colorado Man Wins Candy Factory Through Nationwide Treasure Hunt

A Colorado man's hard work, sense of adventure and treasure hunting skills paid off, after several months of dedicated searching ultimately led him to win a pretty sweet prize.

The contest that Colorado resident, Andrew Maas, was participating in was created by the inventor of Jelly Belly, David Klein. Klein gave people the fun opportunity to find cash prizes that were hidden in secret locations across the country. Registered players received clues through riddles that Klein provided, which led to necklaces that featured digital codes that hunters then entered online. Similar to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," the grand prize in this game was the keys to a candy factory in Florida.

Klein posted the clue for the final prize on Memorial Day, but two weeks passed without any of the treasure hunters locating the keys. More hints were then given out, which narrowed down the location to either Illinois or Indiana.

At this point, Maas was fairly certain that he had solved all of the pieces to the puzzle, and believed that the grand prize was somewhere to be found in Kokomo, Indiana. Trusting his gut, Maas booked a flight out of Denver at 6 a.m. the next morning, and at approximately 10:40 a.m., he uncovered the winning prize in a park in Central Indiana.

Twenty minutes after finding the golden dog tags that symbolized the grand prize, Maas received a congratulatory call from the Candyman, David Klein himself.

According to 9News, Maas doesn't plan on moving his family to Florida to get into the candy business. Instead, the lucky winner plans to take ownership of the factory, then sell it back to its original owner for more of a cash prize. A deal is still being finalized for that to happen.