The "Monster with 21 Faces": The Cyanide Candy Scare That Terrorized 1980s Japan

In the mid-1980s a shadowy extortion ring that called itself the "Monster with 21 Faces" launched a campaign that shook Japan's food industry, forced a nationwide candy recall and left one of the country's best-known snack makers reeling.

The abduction that started it

On March 18, 1984, Katsuhisa Ezaki, president of Ezaki Glico — maker of the popular Pocky biscuit sticks — was seized from his home near Osaka while preparing for a bath. Two masked intruders bound family members, dragged a barefoot, hastily dressed Ezaki outside and drove him away. The kidnappers demanded 1 billion yen and 100 kilograms of gold bullion. Three days later Ezaki escaped by prying open the door of a warehouse where he was being held and alerted police, ending the abduction but opening a far larger and more terrifying episode.

Poison threats and a national recall

Soon after his escape, Glico began receiving letters from the self-styled "Monster with 21 Faces" claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and asserting that the company's products had been contaminated with cyanide. Faced with public fear and the possibility of further harm, the company voluntarily withdrew all its products from shelves nationwide — a recall that devastated sales and led to deep financial losses and layoffs.

As consumers avoided packaged sweets, police tested thousands of samples and retailers removed suspect items from stores. Other food companies — including major confectioners and manufacturers — soon received similar threats and some packages were later found to contain lethal concentrations of cyanide or deliberate tampering, though contaminated boxes were largely intercepted before causing fatalities.

Taunts, stakeouts and the "fox-eyed man"

The extortionists repeatedly taunted investigators in letters and set elaborate instructions for ransom drops. In one letter the group mocked law enforcement:

"Tell me, police fools, do you know who we are? Shall we play with the police?"

Police pursued thousands of leads and staged numerous stakeouts. An undercover officer reported seeing a distinctive, well-built man with narrow, sharp eyes — quickly nicknamed the "fox-eyed man" — near more than one ransom exchange, but he escaped capture. A composite sketch circulated widely, yet no prosecutable suspect ever emerged. Authorities interviewed more than 100,000 people over the course of the investigation.

Escalation, a tragic outcome and the end of the campaign

Pressure mounted on investigators. On August 7, 1985, Shoji Yamamoto, a superintendent involved with one of the high-profile stakeouts, died by self-immolation — a shocking event that intensified scrutiny of the case. Days later the extortion group sent a final letter that mocked the superintendent and announced it would cease targeting food manufacturers, suggesting any future attacks would be the work of imitators.

After that correspondence the letters stopped. The investigation continued intermittently for years, but no arrests were made. By 1994 the statute of limitations on the kidnapping had expired, and by 2000 the statute of limitations on attempted-murder charges related to the poisoned sweets had also lapsed. Today the episode remains one of Japan's most notorious unsolved criminal mysteries.

Legacy

The "Monster with 21 Faces" case left a lasting imprint on corporate crisis response, product safety protocols and public trust. It prompted stricter packaging and monitoring practices across Japan's food industry and remains a cautionary example of how hoaxes and real tampering can inflict severe economic and social damage even when lives are spared.