GamePolitics has the story from the UK's Telegraph, which states that £20,000 of "petrol" was scheduled to be given away for free. But the bobbies stepped in, shouted "what's all this, then" to anyone within earshot, and shut it down early, with only around half of the free gas going out.
Here in the States, the Los Angeles giveaway sounds like it went down as planned. EA took the opportunity to get people dressed up as the three mercs from the game and they shot a bunch of silly-ass video. There are a handful of fake news reports up on break.com, but here's my favorite.
The lesson here, obviously, is don't let your dress-up talent improv answers to questions. Totally shatters the whole illusion. Still, it's hard to argue with free gas, and for once, it's a game launch promotional tie-in that actually makes sense in the context of the game it's promoting.