History Main / MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot

** Season 3: Prison escape of Mexican crime lord → terrorist plot by Jack Bauer's former ally to use a virus.

** Season 5: Terrorists seize hostages at an airport → President Logan tries to cover up his involvement in the terror attacks.

** ''Film/DieHardII'': [=McClane=] sees a man with a gun at an airport --> Hijackers plan to crash every plane until a political prisoner is released.

** ''Film/DieHard2'': [=McClane=] sees a man with a gun at an airport --> Hijackers plan to crash every plane until a political prisoner is released.

* ''Film/{{Zoolander}}'': Disappearance of the world's most famous male model --> Assassination attempt on the Malaysian Prime Minister.

** ''Film/DieHardII'': [=McClane=] sees a man with a gun at an airport --> Hijackers plan to crash every plane until a political prisoner is released.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} 3: The Frozen Throne'''s bonus campaign, "The Founding of Durotar", an investigation into who is riling up the thunder lizards leads to the discovery of a [[RenegadeSplinterFaction renegade human faction]] trying to start another war with the Horde.

* ''Film/LAConfidential'': [[spoiler:Theft of a suitcase of cocaine at the start of the movie]] → a massive corruption ring in the LAPD and an attempt to control all of Los Angeles' organized crime

* ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'': Truck hijacking → massacre at the docks

* Invoked at the beginning of ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'': The Suspects attack a police car so as to draw attention to a corruption ring that will escort wealthy criminals around town, protecting them from actual arrest. This ring apparently was active all throughout the [=NYPD=], going as far up as the District Attorney.

* ''Film/KissKissBangBang'': "Your case and my case... are the same fucking case!"

* ''Film/LAConfidential'': The Night Owl Massacre which kills an ex-cop and several other staff members → a massive corruption ring in the LAPD and an attempt to control all of Los Angeles' organized crime

* ''Film/PoliceAcademy 6'': Zig-zagged. A spree of armed robberies is discovered to be ground work for a real estate scam. The robberies are all committed along the proposed path of a new and still undisclosed railway line which would drive up property prices. The BigBad is using the crime wave he orchestrated to drive property prices down before the reveal, so he can buy up the land for next-to-nothing and then watch the value go to the moon when the railway plans are revealed. What makes this a zig-zag is the fact that the real estate scam would be so staggeringly lucrative that a couple of gunmen knocking over local businesses really is the lesser crime in this case.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': Outpost scientist is turned to stone → plot by another outpost scientist and planetary resident to make money by stealing Starfleet information and selling it on the black market.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Neptunia}}'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13988270/1/Rei-Ryghts-Ace-Attorney-Turnabout-Of-The-Night Rei Ryghts: Ace Attorney Turnabout Of The Night]], the murder of the CFO of a sunscreen manufacturer eventually leads to a conspiracy by a vampire to bring about TheNightThatNeverEnds.

* According to Lee from ''Film/{{Eraser}}'', a "clerical error" she had detected led her to the conclusion that the arms manufacturing company she works for has been selling weapons to America's enemies.

** "Late Returns". A homicide victim has a shrine to a girl who died. It leads the cold case team to a politician who was molested by his sister.

** "Breaking News". Wrongful employment termination → massive coverup by a plastics company whose employees are dying from asbestos exposure → murder of the investigating reporter

** Junkie appears with his neck snappped → dead junkie turns out to be a radiological hazard, leading the Miami police to suspect potential nuclear terrorism → local crusading lawyer turns out to have been poisoned with radioactive dye, which leads to the suspicion that a local medical company (that the lawyer was investigating for corrupt and incompetent practices) had performed the (slow and ''very'' painful) assassination → StalkerWithACrush informant within the company that provided the lawyer with important evidence for her case had taken the fact that she didn't like him back ''very'' badly, leading to him stealing the dye from the company's nuclear medicine supplies to poison her, and snapping the neck of the junkie when he tried to steal the syringes that carried the dye, believing them to be drugs. Zig-zagged all over the place, and at least the lawyer was able to pass away knowing that her poisoner had been caught and the company was going to get the book tossed at it for both the malpracticing she was investigating and allowing the dye to be so easy to steal.

** The canon novel "The Con Job". Dealing with a forger stealing original work from aging comic artists → Preventing a Japanese real estate developer/crime boss from ''killing everyone at Comic-Con with a car bomb'' so he can set it up in his own hotel(!).
*** There ''are'' some ''big'' ones from Season 3 onwards, however;
** "The Inside Job". A theft from an agricultural company → ''plot to cause a global famine so the company can profit from its monopoly on blight-resistant wheat.''
** "The Double-Blind Job". Accidentally foiled kidnapping/assassination → plot to knowingly release toxic drug nationwide, killing anywhere from thousands to ''millions'', earning the Evil Drug Company '''billions''' for a 15% fine.
--->'''EDC CEO''': ''That's like tipping your waiter. "Thank you very much for taking our drugs. Here's a little something for your family."''
** "The Big Bang Job". Investigation of international criminal → ''plot to destroy Washington DC with a prototype EMP city-buster.''

** In "Mr. Monk and the Magician", Monk's upstairs neighbor Kevin is killed by Karl Torini the night he debuts as an amateur magician = discrepancies in Torini's airline receipts that were evidence of Torini's involvement in a drug trafficking ring.
** In the TieInNovel ''Mr. Monk In Outer Space'', the heart-attack death of a fast-food company CEO that is dressed up as a shooting -> exposure of an embezzlement scam.

* According to Lee from ''Film/{{Eraser}}'', she began investigating the arms manufacturing company she works for illegal activity because of an "clerical error" she detected.

** "The Sleepover". Mentally challenged man kills someone → parental abuse and murder of a child
** "The Red & The Blue". A wife shoots her philandering husband. The gun is found to have been used in the murder of a man that the couple knew.

** "The Road", the MonsterOfTheWeek is caught after making a turn without signaling. When the cops run his plates, they realize that it matches a car seen leaving the site of a woman's kidnapping a year prior. What's more, the cops soon discover that she was just his ''latest'' victim and that he's actually a ''SerialKiller'' who's been abducting and killing women for years.

* ''Film/TheNakedGun'': Officer Nordberg's Investigation of drug smuggling at the docks → plot to assassinate the Queen of England.

* Rinse and repeat with the case of Larry Nassar at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, only the second major sex scandal to rock the sports world since the Sandusky Affair. It started when a coach heard one of her gymnasts and another girl discussing Nassar's "treatments" and thought that something didn't sound right, so she reported it. From there, what unfolded was a full-blown sex abuse case, with well over a hundred victims ultimately named, and Nassar recieving a LongerThanLifeSentence. What's more, the investigation not only involved Nassar himself, but also implicated Michigan State University and a few higher-ups at USA Gymnastics in a major coverup, and also opened the door for subsequent allegations of verbal and physical abuse against individual coaches. The full extent of the situation may not be known until the conclusion of the investigation, which is expected to take years.

* ''Film/TheNakedGun'': Attempted murder of Officer Nordberg → plot to assassinate the Queen of England.

* ''VideoGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' for the UsefulNotes/SuperNES has a WhodunnitToMe that reveals a major conspiracy to take control of the entire Internet.