In the spring of nineteen eighty four, a Japanese candy company executive was kidnapped from his own home while he was soaking in the bathtub. What followed wasn't just a ransom attempt. It was the beginning of a nationwide nightmare. For the next seventeen months, an anonymous group launched a relentless campaign of blackmail, arson, poison threats, and public humiliation, and despite one of the largest investigations in Japanese history,
they were never canned. This is the unsolved story of the Monster with twenty one faces.
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast.
The following podcast your real intended your audience listeners, Okay, guess what what? That's what? Did you see that coming?
Not at all?
Well, I mean you're looking directly at me, so probably, I'm sure.
Did. You're drinking beer? I'm drinking a hot chocolate. It's a good night.
It's a good night for sure. If you haven't heard yet, Fearful, our sibling podcast, came out with ten new episodes last week and is now uploading every Wednesday.
Wow ding dang, Yeah.
Just gonna drop that there, and we'll leave it at that.
Drop that bomb. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people have already listened, but there is a lot out there that happens some.
Good stories too. But we have a good story today.
Have you ever heard of the sound? So?
Have you heard about this one? The master with twenty one faces?
No, not even a little.
I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when I run across the case that I haven't heard of before. It's like, oh, why haven't I heard of this one? But then also at the same time, when you think about it, my knowledge on true crime, even after hosting a podcast with you about true crime for the last like three four years, is only a drop of water in the giant ocean that is yeah, world of true crime.
So it makes which is just sad it is yeah and true crime. Okay, I'm just going to share this story. I've already shared this with you, but I don't know if this is like a good thing or a bad thing. So I was like, oh, for dinner with a friend and putting something in my back seat of my car. She had like gone into the passenger side, and then I seen these two guys just like staring, and then they slowly like made their way over to the car, and I was just like, oh my god, holy shit.
And I like hopped in the car and locked the door like as quick as I can. And it's like, oh, man, is it good to be that on edge? Or is true crime fucking with me?
Well, you got it. You got to continue the story and what happened? What did they do next?
Well, they continued walking like down the sidewalk. Okay, so they crossed the road over to us. So I don't know. My spidy sense was just like through the roof, were.
They engaging or anything? Did they engage in you talk to.
You like like watching?
Okay, So there we go. Don't get me wrong. Probably good call, spidy sense.
You can get me too safe. You got to listen to those gut feelings sometimes one hundred percent. But I was just like, wow, it was probably.
Probably one of those situations where like nothing was gonna happen.
It was just a weird coincidence.
Yeah, but if on the off chance something might have, Yeah, listened to your gut.
Yeah, oh my gosh, that was we have a finily probably heard we have a dog hacking away in the background. I think she ate some grass or something earlier, and she's been doing that kind of off and on all night.
Well, I mean the sun shining, you know this, you know, the outside weather is upon us and everything. She's been enjoying herself outside, and honestly, I think there's a lot of people who have been enjoying themselves like outside.
Recently, doing yard work and everything nice exactly.
And when they're out there doing the yardwork, they can be listening to podcasts, and they can especially be listening to behind the scenes content and exclusive episodes if they sign up over on our Patreon, like these amazing people did, like Rachelle, for example, or Rachel. I don't know if it's Rochelle or Rachel because they're both always spelled like the same.
But how's it spelled r A c hl. I think that's Rachel.
Yeah, but I've seen people who have it Rachelle, but it's spelt the same. Oh okay, I've also seen Raquel spelt the same. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Rachel. Probably Rachel, Sophia Days, Melissa Bracken Henderson, Julia Ferrell, Shelby, Chrissy Waite, Naomi Ortega, Joe Erronymous, I probably butchered your name, sorry, Joe Ashanda eighty.
You know what, it's just part of your charm.
It's part of my charm. I can't rap for shit, right.
He butchered my name. That is just so like on brand.
It really is. But thank you guys so much for signing up over in Patreon. We got a little bit of a giveaway going on right now, so some of you might be involved in it and doing a little bit of a mystery puzzle solve thing as we go along.
Cool. Yeah, there's always cool stuff going on in.
There always, But for now I think we should get onto this case. Let's do it, okay. In the mid nineteen eighties, Japan was shaken by one of the most bizarre and unsettling crime sprees in its modern history. And it had nothing to do with murder, war or political scandal. In fact, it had to do with something I guarantee you you didn't see coming. You see, it all started
with Candy. That's right, Candy Candy. This is the story of the monster with twenty one faces, a mystery that begins with a kidnapping and spirals into something a lot stranger. So it was on the night of March eighteenth, nineteen eighty four. It was supposed to be, you know, just a regular quiet Sunday, especially for Katsahushia Azaki, the president of the Japanese candy giant Azaki Glico. He was just chillin at his home in Nishiomia, a city near Kobe,
winding down from the day with a bath. His wife and three young kids were getting ready for bed, and his seventy year old mother was next door in her townhouse on the same property. But that night, something terrifying happened. Two masked men broke into Azaki's mother's house. First, they tied her up, cut the phone lines, and took something very specific, a key to Azaki's home, which was protected by a security system. Now these guys weren't amateurs. They
clearly had done their homework. Using the stolen key, they entered Azaki's house, tied up his wife and seven year old daughter, then went straight for him. Now, Azaki was still in the bath with his two other kids when they found him. He screamed, but the men threatened to harm his family if he didn't cooperate, so he had no choice and he did as he was told, so still soaking wet, he was dragged from his home completely naked and stuffed into a car that was waiting.
Man, that would be very alarming.
Yeah, it was a full blown abduction. And this was the president of one of Japan's most beloved candy companies and he had just been kidnapped from his home. Yeah, so this is specifically someone targeting a high order executive from this company.
And you said he had like security and stuff, or like a security system and shit. So they had been planning this.
Shit, They did their homework for sure. Now, by the next morning, a ransom note appeared, demanding roughly one billion yen, which would equal approximately four point three million US dollars, well as well as two hundred and twenty pounds of gold bullion, which is refined gold typically at least ninety nine point five percent pure, in the form of either bars or coins.
Okay, I was hoping that it was going to be candy. That would have made this a little bit more interesting for me.
It's not. They didn't. They didn't ransom him for candy, Okay. I have a feeling they wouldn't have talked to authorities or got the authorities involved. It was just candy. They would have taken him, been like unlock your factor, you know what I mean.
Yeah, No, I'm just kidding.
So this whole situation though, with asking for four point three million dollar US dollars and two hundred and twenty pounds of gold, it sounds like an over the top movie plot, if I'm being honest, But it was only the beginning. Police responded quickly. There was a nationwide media blackout, and it was all when this was all happening, was put in place, and it was a massive search effort
that went underway immediately. But despite all their efforts, they couldn't track down on the kidnappers or even figure out who they were. In fact. Then three days later, on March twenty first, Azaki managed to escape.
Okay, good for him.
He had been held in a warehouse not far from the company Osaka's headquarters. At some point his captors apparently let their guard down. Azaki loosened his ropes that were
tying him up. He broke through the door and fled down the street barefoot, still wearing the simple clothes that his abductor had given him to wear it because remember he was captured from the bath, and he was nude at the time, so he flagged down help from a pair of railroad workers and was eventually reunited with his family. He was shaken, but not physically harmed. He was safe. Now. Even though Azaki escaped without a ransom being paid, the
people behind the kidnapping clearly weren't done. In fact, the whole situation escalated almost immediately. A few weeks later after the abduction, on April tenth, nineteen eighty four, someone set fire to several vehicles in the parking lot of Glico's company headquarters. So that's the company, the candy company factory, right, Okay, so they actually set fire to the vehicles at that headquarters,
targeting them. Less than a week later, a plastic container filled with hydrochloric acid was found inside of one of Glico's buildings, the same in the city of I'm gonna get this wrong. I'm going to try Ibaraki, which was the same city where Azaki had been held captive. Now, the container wasn't just there for shock value either. It came with a note tying it directly back to the same people responsible for that kidnapping. Which, since there's notes,
I should mention. There's also letters, and I mean there was like over one hundred different letters that was sent to the police over the course of this.
Case, like from the bad people. Yeah, from these well doing the captives or whatever they're called.
Correct, So there's no way we can cover every single letter this episode, just saying that. But they did begin on April eighth, which is just a couple of days backtracking here, and they were taunting. They were sarcastic, and they were of course taunting the police directly. The tone was subtle. Sorry, it wasn't subtle. One of the first letters opened with quote to the stupid police, are you idiots?
WHOA, Yeah, that's harsh.
They're just like, how have you not caught us yet? How have you not found out who we are yet? What are you doing? They blame them for like wasting tax payers dollars, Like if you can't catch us with some of this information, like you're just like, what are you doing?
But that's I feel like that's almost an insult to them too, because are they wanting to be found? Then it's sort of seeming so.
Well, let me continue here. Now. The letters written entirely in Haragana, which and using Osaka dialect, the dialect at the time, and the kanji's and everything. They seemed intentionally childish and mocking. The group, still unnamed at this point, claimed there were no insiders helping them, and they denied any sort of ties to a Zakey's relatives or local
law enforcement, and dropped several clues. In fact, they were saying that their getaway car they specifically told the police our car was gray, and they told them, oh, and by the way, we bought some food from this one well known supermarket chain called the Dai. So they're like, we bought some stuff from this grocery store. Our getaway car was this color, and they're like, how can you not fucking figure this out? So, whether they're trying to get caught or they're just taunting them hard to.
Say yeah, because I'm imagining those I don't know, just from being a total outsider, it doesn't seem like those are really that hot of tips to me. I mean, how many people are probably at that grocery store in a day, well, how many people drive a gray car? I don't know.
Still, they wrapped up this letter though, with another jab at the police, saying, should we kidnap the head of the prefectural police too.
Oh just yeez.
Sheer confidence in like we can get away with this stuff if you can't get just right now, like we know we can get away with this. So they weren't just hiding in the shadows. They were openly taunting law enforcement and the public and clearly keeping up with media coverage. Police noted the regional dialect and the simplicity of the writing style, which suggested the group might be local. Still,
none of the details led anywhere useful. The investigation was stalling in the group, they clearly knew it too, so things got a little more serious. In May of nineteen eighty four, the group claimed that they had laced Glico's candy products with potassium cyanide.
Oh my goodness.
And then they said that they placed them back on the store shelf.
Shit.
Now, whether this was real or not, it didn't matter. The threat worked and Kiko was forced to pull every product off the shelf, a move that costs the company an estimated of twenty one million.
Dollars like US dollars we're talking here?
Yes?
Cool?
That one threat shut down production and it led to the temporary layoff of four hundred and fifty part time workers and said, shockwaves through the Japanese food industry.
Well, yeah, that is so scary because it's sort of something you have to take seriously.
Exactly, but holy shit. Well and even if it's like okay, we need to test to see if this is real, it's going to take time to pull products to test them, and you have to halt production because it's like no, like you can't tell if it's coming from inside or not. So you have to do a full investigation among the testing as well. So they tested for these products or
testimony the products are poisoned. None was found, and it just seemed like it was all a threat really, but still just the fear alone was.
Enough in such a waste of money. And then you're affecting other people's lives.
Yep.
I just think how many people, well, like say you got laid off or whatever, and then how many people in the world would have wanted that candy or you know, needed food or something, and all the shit's just getting thrown in the garbage exactly.
Well, and you're not even thinking of that. But also the distributors' lives as well, the distributors who are supplying the candy company with, you know, the ingredients to create the candy. Yeah, so you have to think of the layoffs on those ends as well. Yeah, it's a ripple effect through a lot of a lot of industries. Now, by the summer of nineteen eighty four, what started as
a single kidnapping had ballooned into a national crisis. The letters were piling up, As I mentioned, there was like over one hundred of them, The threats were getting bolder, and the police, despite their massive efforts, still had no idea who they were dealing with and who these people were. And that's when the group finally settled on a name
for themselves. It was in June of nineteen eighty four when they began signing the letters to the police as quote the Monsters, Sorry, the monster with twenty one faces. It wasn't just a random name though. They didn't just come up with this and pull out of thin air. It was a reference to a fictional villain from a Japanese detective stories, a master of disguise who taunted police and always managed to slip away.
You know, I don't love that they're just naming themselves.
That bothers me the name was not so much that they're like, oh, we're cool and here's a cool name for ourselves. It in itself is again another taunt in jab at police. If you look at this character in fiction, police were never able to catch them. That's what's going to happen here. That's pretty much what they're doing. Okay, So it was clear this wasn't just about money though. Whoever these people were, they were trying to make a
statement and have some fun doing it too. That same month, on June twenty sixth, The Monster with twenty one faces sent out a strange letter to the media saying they were done harassing Glico. In a weirdly playful tone, they wrote this, the president of Glico has already gone around with his head hanging down long enough off we would like to forgive him. Japan has gotten terribly hot and humid. So when our work is done, we want to go to Europe. Geneva, Paris, London. We'll be in one of
those places. Let's bring Pockey, the Traveler's friend, delicious glicoproducts. We're eating them too.
What the shit? What does that mean by forgive him?
That's the question. Who knows.
What the hell did he do?
We don't know, but we do know. It seems like whatever he did, whatever the reason they have to target him, they're forgiving him. They're leaving him alone there.
They feel like they've done enough damage or whatever, let's move on exactly.
So they're also saying, when our work is done, they're going to basically go on.
Vacation, and they're advertising his product for him now.
Yeah, so they're like, yeah, we're not targeting him anymore. We're gonna go on vacation. We're gonna eat some candy. That's what this basic this letter just basically said. And just like that, it seemed like this nightmare was over. No one had been hurt, there's no ransom that collected. Glico, while badly bruised, was still standing and people assumed the group had just got bored and moved on. But the relief didn't last long. Only two days later, on June
twenty eighth, a new target emerged. This time it was Muradi Ham, a food company known for its processed meat products. They received a letter demanding fifty million yen, which is equivalent to around two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars at the time and instructions for a drop off of the money. But what really caught everyone's attention wasn't the money, it was the man who showed up to follow the plan.
So during the coordinated drop off of the money, right, so it's like, drop off the money here at this location. This time, an undercover officer disguised as a Maradi employee noticed he had been followed by a suspicious man on the train. So this guy who's, you know, supposedly a part of the company dropping the money off as as instructed, he's actually an officer, and he's like, okay, I'm being I'm being trailed by someone, someone who's watching me. Now.
This officer described him as large, well built, with short permed hair and narrow eyes, sharp eyes. Later police would actually nickname him the fox eyed man.
Okay, that's quite a nickname.
So the officer tried to keep an eye on him, even switching trains to throw him off, but the man always seemed to stay one step ahead of him and eventually slipped away without a trace. It was the closest police had come to some potential someone potentially connected to this group. However, it still wasn't close enough. This did mark a turning point, though the group wasn't just hiding behind letters anymore. They were making public moves, taunting law
enforcement and showing they were watching everything. They had money drop off plans, and one particular one where the money was supposed to be dropped off again to undercover officers. No one showed up too money drop off, and a letter came in where it was like, you guys think you're slick, like we know you guys are officers? Like no, they're like, we can tell by your shifty eyes. It gave you away.
Yeah, so what how how would they be able to tell? I guess, well, because are they thinking maybe if it wasn't an officer, the person would be kind of acting pretty nervous and stuff, and these officers weren't.
Well, they're not too sure that there's potentials that they were using things like police scanners to like hear your conversations. Maybe they were watching really closely, Maybe they recognized faces of the police. Maybe they did their research on who was who. It's hard to say now. The next major target was one of Japan's biggest confectionery companies, Maringa and Co. And this time they weren't just threatening. They followed through
on their actions. It was October nineteen eighty four letters began showing up once again, but this time, instead of targeting company executives or police, the group addressed their message directly to mums of the nation. The letter claimed that the group had laced Maringa candy with cyanide, and they were not bluffing this time. They included chilling lines like quote, We've added some special flavor. The flavor of potassium cyanide is a little bitter. It won't cause tooth decay, So
buy the suites for your kids. Yeah, not exactly a typical product pitch, but that's what they said. Now. Along with a letter came a terrifying announcement twenty boxes of poison candy had been planted across stores in Japan from Tokyo to Hakata. Police of course, with this new information, say okay, there's potentially twenty boxes of cyanide lace candy out there, got a pull it. They jumped into action. Tens of thousands of officers were deployed to comb through
grocery stores, convenience shops, and department store shelves. They found the candy.
It was it was legit.
It was legit. They found eighteen, not twenty oh no, but they found eighteen tainted packages, including Choco Balls and Angel Pies, two of Marenga's most popular treats. Six of them contained lethal doses of cyanide. Thankfully, every one of those packages had been labeled. The group had placed a sticker on the box that said things like danger contains poisoned, You'll die if you eat this. The monster with twenty one faces. So they actually labeled each package that they did poison.
Okay, well, where are those other two? That would drive me freaking nuts? And seriously, if you consume this you would just die. It's done. Yeah, ah, that's scary.
Well I imagine if they didn't label it, I guess.
But do you trust these people that they're actually freaking only doing it to ones they label I don't know. I wouldn't trust them at all.
Well, the thing is, though it sounds strange, but like with these warning labels, like no one did die. Not a single person was poisoned, and it most likely the damage was avoided because of those labels.
Okay, so they're not It's almost seeming like they're not wanting people to die.
It doesn't seem like they want to hurt people. It does.
They're hurting people, well, they don't want them to I guess physically be hurt.
They're not wanting to harm a person physically. I guess they don't want their direct actions to harm someone physically. How's that for a sentence that makes sense?
Yeah, okay, there we go.
Now. Marenga's entire product line had been pulled from store shelves. They're sales plummeted by more than sixty percent. Hundreds of part time workers once again lost their jobs. Parents across Japan were afraid to buy sweets with their children. Trust in major brands were shattered overnight, and the threats didn't stomp there. In February nineteen eighty five, police found another round of poison candy in the city of Osaka, Tokyo
and Kyoto. These two were marked with the warning labels, but it was clear that the monster was keeping their promise. They said that there would be thirty buckses next time, and some might not be labeled at all. So it's this escalating warning of next time, next time, next time, and they have followed through. In a couple so far. Yep, so maybe they're not just threats.
But I'm sorry, this is the same product.
No, it's going on for like different products and stuff.
No, but the same company. Sorry I mean or no.
I believe this one was the same company as well.
Yes, Oh, they're just destroying like, oh, this is maddening to me because they're just destroying these people's like hard work and shit. Yeah, and oh it was ruining jobs.
And dang, it was a nightmare on it was a national nightmare because not only are you destroying like these jobs, not only are you destroying the reputation of companies, you're destroying trust from companies to family homes.
Very hard to build that.
Yeah, and you're destroying the homes themselves because people are so afraid of what they can and cannot eat. So I'm sure people are refusing to eat things that they do not know exactly where they came from and had hands in them themselves. So there's a lot of probably food waste, which means people starving and going hungry. It again, this major domino effect that's going to ripple across the entire nation.
Yeah, it's not even like something that can be kept quiet. No, you know, definitely needs to be bout there.
So this is a public safety issue. So they have a letter that says candy distributed publicly is poisoned. Right now, you can't not say anything. You have to be like, don't fucking buy this candy, public recall?
Yeah and right away.
Yeah. Now, Japan has never experienced a crime like this. When that's struck at something as simple and innocent as candy, grocery stores became crime scenes. Parents were panicked, and the police they were still just chasing these shadows of who was this monster with twenty one faces. Now, the fox eyed man who instantly became the police prime suspect, wasn't
the only lead. In a separate incident, Surveillance footage from a store captured another man placing what looked like a recalled Glico product back on a shelf, or maybe not recall, but just a product itself, because right around that same time, Glico products were being laced with poison, so this could be one of those ones that was laced right being put onto the shelf. Okay, Now, the footage was grainy, but the man wore a Yumi Yuri Giant's baseball cap,
a business suit and glasses. This person became known as the quote videotaped man, and for a while it seemed like investigators were finally starting to get some leads and they're beginning to close in. Then came the real twist. Police thought they might actually have identified the fox eyed man.
A sketch of the suspect was made public in early nineteen eighty five, and it looked strikingly similar to an individual by the name of Manibu Miyazaki, the son of a yakuza boss and a man with a criminal passed now. Miyazaki had been involved in a labor dispute with Glico a decade earlier, and some of the people investigating the case were convinced that he was their guy, But once police checked out his alibi, it actually held up. He was in a different location during several of the incidents.
The connection was circumstantial at best, and without heart evidence, they just had to let it go. Miyazaka was never charged. There was resemblance to the sketches continue to fuel a lot of speculation around.
His name well, and it sounds like he had reason, or not necessarily good reason, but to have like a beef with them.
Yeah he had motive.
Yeah, yeah, motive. That's a lot. He's your way of putting it fair enough. Yeah.
Now, even with these glimpses, the fox eyed man on the train, the videotape man in the store, and the possible idea of Miyazaki, the monster with twenty one faces always seemed to stay one step ahead, and by the summer of nineteen eighty five, they had been tormenting Japan for over a year. Food companies were just bleeding money. Public anxiety was through the roof, and police, despite throwing everything they had at the case, still had no arrests,
no names, and no real progress. For many people, the constant chaos felt like a bad dream, just that wouldn't end. But for one man, the pressure became too much for him to bear. His name was Superintendent Shoji Yamamoto. He was in charge of the investigation in Shiga Prefecture, one of the key regions that was involved in the case. Right so now, Yamamoto was a seasoned officer with a long career, but the failure to catch the monster was
weighing heavily on him. His department had come close to catching the group during a filled money drop involving the Fox side Man, but like everything else in the case, that lead just slipped away. On August seventh, nineteen eighty five, Yamamoto reached a breaking point. In an act of despair and shame, he poured kerosene over himself in his backyard and set himself on fire.
Oh man, he.
Died shortly after, and his death shocked the entire country.
Oh no, yeah, so now like someone has gotten physically hurt.
Yes, someone has died because of this. He was basically, yeah, he felt so much shame from not being able to solve this case. Yep, that he Yeah, he committed suicide.
That is terrible, terrible. It is so fricking sad. Now the tragedy sent a powerful ripple through Japan. The monster with twenty one faces had taken no lives, at least not directly, but now a respected law enforcement officer was dead, and it was impossible to ignore the connection.
Yep.
Yamamoto's suicide was seen as a symbol of emotional toll This unsolved case had taken not just on the public, but on the people trying to stop it. Five days later, on October twelfth, the Monster said one final letter. It began coldly. Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture police died. How stupid of him.
Yeah, that's the fucking letter.
That's how it started.
Okay, what a bunch of assholes.
Yeah. The tone, as always was mocking in cruel, but surprisingly the message also marked a turning point, and the letter continued to say this, Yamamoto died like a man, So we decided to give our condolences. We decided to forget about our torturing food making companies. They added that if any similar crimes happened in the future, it wouldn't be them, just copycats. And just like that, the Monster with twenty one faces stopped and disappeared entirely. No more letters,
no more threats, no more poison candy. It was over. After seventeen months of terror, taunting and nationwide fear, the monster with twenty one faces just walked away.
Okay, So I mean obviously that affected them more than they were kind of like letting onto or alluding to.
Well again, I don't think that they were in intending for anyone to come to harm, so.
But still they had they were intending on a lot, Like a lot of shit happened, so I don't quite understand the reason of doing this. It doesn't make any sense to me. Well, it seems well we even have gained Really are they gaining money? I guess they are gain money from these like drops and stuff.
None of them ever occurred, no handover ever happened.
Okay, yeah, makes no sense. Then this makes no sense.
Yeah, welcome to the case of the Monster with twenty one faces. Because it don't make no sense.
No, it really doesn't, and it just pisses y'af.
Yeah, you're not wrong, because I'm pissed off. Yeah, and you clearly are too well, because.
I'm like, am I missing something here? What the hell is happening?
No, you're right there with me.
It's just a bunch of assholes, calls and shit.
It's funny because I can hear you yelling at me in the back of my head. I can hear our friend Larissa yelling at me too. I know it's happening right now.
Oh and it's not just us, no, guaranteed. You know people should comment how many times are you yelling at Ben?
Oh? God?
Through one episode?
Non stop? Guaranteed. Anyways, we digress now, once a monster with twenty one faces went silent in August of nineteen eighty five. It wasn't like the case was just dropped. If anything, law enforcement they doubled down. Just because the perpetrator is done doesn't mean they are right.
That's good.
The Japanese public wanted answers, and the authorities were still hoping they could deliver some kind of resolution. But as the months passed and then the years passed, the reality became harder and harder to deny. The case was going cold. In total, more than one million officers have been involved in some capacity through investigation on this case. This wasn't just a local effort. It was one of the largest
man hunts in Japanese history. Dang police followed over twenty eight thousand tips and investigated nearly one hundred and twenty five thousand individuals. Hoping that someone somewhere might slip up, they leaned heavily on the few pieces of concrete evidence they had. Security camera image of the so called videotape man placing candy on the store shelf, the police sketch of the fox eyed man who had been spotted shadowing undercover officers during one of the ransom attempts. It yeah,
the letters, like all of it. They focused on these sort of things.
So I guess you can't say that they didn't try exactly, that they haven't put their best effort in.
Eh, well, that's the thing they did. Yeah, but none of it led anywhere, not a match, not an arrest, not even a solid lead. The group had managed to carry out an incredibly public and far reaching crime spree without ever being identified. As time passed, public attention eventually started to fade, but the police stayed on it until the clock ran out. See, there's something called the statue
of limitations, and Japan has one. Japan has a statute of limitations on criminal charges, and that meant that there was an expiration date on the justice that could occur. Nicole literally took her glasses off and is rubbing her face in like anger and disappointment.
Right, well, yeah, I'm just like wow.
The kidnapping of GLICO president Katsuhushi Izaki expired on March in March of nineteen ninety four. The charges for attempted murder and extortion expired in February two thousand. The week before the final charge expired, Japan's National Police Agency held a press conference where they admitted defeat publicly quote, it is extremely regrettable that we could not apprehend the suspects. It is indispensable that we make this an important lesson
for our future investigations. And just like that, the monster with twenty one faces that case was officially closed, and if the culprit, if they're still out there, they're now untouchable.
So like even if they came forward, nothing would come. Would it happen?
Correct? They can walk into a police station say I did it, Say my dad did it, or my uncle did it, my mom did it, my sister whoever. They could interview them. They can give evidence, publicly, make a documentary, no repercussions.
Well, I kind of forgot about that. I need to like look into that. How many places have that because that's wild to me.
Statute of limitations. Yeah, yeah, Now, of course, there are a lot of theories that are surrounding this case on who could be responsible, you know, who did it? So let's walk through some of the most talked about ones.
I just have to say one thing. The thing that is bothering me is it would be easier to digest and understand this if it was just like one company, right, But the fact that they did this to like multiple is what is I'm having trouble making sense of because they it's okay, maybe they just don't like this company, someone working there, the owner, someone high up they don't like. But it's like not just one.
Yep, that's correct.
So that's why I'm having so much trouble.
Now, as far as I can tell through researching this case, the only connections between the food companies is their processed foods, the processed meats, the candies. It's processed foods.
Yeah, that's all I got, which makes sense, though I don't know, like it's heat because big companies. I don't know big companies. There isn't really big companies for like fruits and shit, is there? You know? Yes, I guess, but I don't know. Okay, Prick, My brain is like trying to solve this. Good luck, but I want to hear these theories.
Well, how many officers did I say were involved in this over the million? Yea, more than one million officers have been involved in some capacity through the investigation. One million, no offense. But I don't think you or I are going to solve it if one million officers.
Oh no, we're gonna do it right here, right now, right now, We're gonna stay on this podcast and Tilt solved. Oh shit, just kidding.
Anyways, as far as theories go, there's of course the fox side man. It's probably the closest police ever got to catching someone, and he was spotting spotty spotted during the spot hit. There we go. During one of the ransom drop attempts, I'm tailing an undercover cob on the train. Witnesses said he had eyes like a fox, wore glasses and a solid build, and he seemed to be watching the operation a little too closely. Police trailed him but
lost him in the crowd. Then not long after, he actually popped up again, this time near another ransom drop connected to house foods. Same build, same glasses, same vibe sort of thing. Right, The police got a sketch out in the public and for a while he was Japan's most wanted face. But yeah, never found and never identified to this day. Then there's the videotaped man. In his incident, a security camera caught a man in a baseball cap,
a Yumiyuri Giant's cap. Specifically, he was placing glico candy back onto a store shelf. This was around the time the group claimed to be tainting sweets with cyanide. That footage was grainy and old, but it was enough to give him a nickname, the videotape Man. Then there was Miyazaki Guy, who was an actual name suspect for a time. He looked a lot like the fox eyde Man and had a criminal record. Even more suspicious, he had a long standing grudge against Glico, including a labor dispute from
about a decade earlier. His father was a known yakuza boss and had been in trouble with the police before. Basically, on paper, he looked like he was the perfect suspect, but he had an alibi that held up tight. He denied everything. He was never charged and even wrote a book about what it was like to be falsely accused on such a high profile case.
He makes it makes sense, though.
It does a lot of people still wonder if he was involved, maybe not even directly, but as a planner or maybe advisor. But there's no proof there. It's just speculation. Then there's the revenge theory. It's one of the more compelling ideas, and it's that it's a long game revenge for a tragedy from almost thirty years earlier. Back in nineteen fifty five, the company Maringa had a major scandal
arsenic poisoning in their baby formula. Over twelve thousand infants were affected and more than one hundred of them died. Survivors of that disaster would have been in their late twenties or early thirties by the time the Monster with twenty one faces showed up. Well, yeah, so could this have been their way of getting back of the company that hurt them? I mean, maybe it would explain why the company Maringa in particular was targeted with actual poisoned candy.
But then again, the group several companies, not just Maringa, so that revenge theory, at least on that incident only goes so far right.
And like I said, if it was just that company, it would make sense.
Yeap. Now there's the corporate sabotage angle. This one's a bit out there, but still interesting. Some believe the Monster with twenty one faces was part of a stock market manipulation scheme. The idea scare investors tank the company's stock price, buy low, then stop the attacks. And sell high when the stock rebounds, rints and repeat. Problem is, there's no actual evidence of this happening. It's more of a hypothetical
what if scenario. Still, it taps into just how much economic damage the group caused because millions of dollars in losses, stock price is free falling and massive layoffs actually occurred.
Well, and wouldn't you I feel like that one would be a bit trackable.
Well, that's the thing, it would be. But there's no evidence of any sort of pump and dump occurring at that time. Okay, Yeah, So then there's the ACUZA connection. Given the coordination and discipline behind the attack, some investigators believe the ACUSA might have been involved. The timing lined up with the internal conflict with Japan's biggest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi Gumi. Maybe the monster with twenty one faces was a rogue faction trying to raise funds or just
cause chaos. But like most of these theories, this one hit a wall. No hard evidence, you know, nothing ever showing up of tying a group like this from organized crime to this event ever came to. So it's just a dart at a dart board seeing if it hits something sort of thing. There's also a idea of it being a political plot, so there's speculation that this could have been a covert operation by a foreign government, North
Korea being the usual suspect. That might sound far fetched, but Japan has had its share of strange by like incidents involving North Korea. Still, in this case, it's just another theory with no solid proof backing it. Regardless of the theories, though, the truth behind the monster with twenty one faces vanished in nineteen eighty five, but their impact didn't not even close. This case didn't just shake up a few candy companies. It changed the way Japan thought
about safety, corporate security, and even law enforcement. See Back in the eighties, Japan had one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Violent crimes were rare, random crime was even rarer, and most people felt safe doing things like buying candy off a store shelf without a second thought. That, of course, changed fast after the threats to poisoned products in constant media coverage. People started second guessing everything. Was
this candy safe? Could the police really protect anyone? The idea that a group could operate in public view for over a year. Taunting police the whole time made the public feel like things weren't as secure as they seemed. Even after no one was physically harmed, at least not directly, the psychological impact was real. Parents were scared, stores had to beef up security, and businesses had to learn a harsh lesson about how vulnerable they were outside of threat
vulnerable they were two outside threats. Sorry. So the damage to candy industry was also a was very palpable and heavy. It was emotional and financial too. Glico reported a loss of around one hundred and thirty million in sales. Maringa saw sales plummet by sixty percent. Entire product lines were pulled off shells, Thousands of part time workers were laid off.
Companies didn't just take a hit, they got gutted. Even after the case went cold, it took a long time for the public to trust those brands again, and companies across Japan, not just the food industry, had to rethink
how they handled security, crisis response, and public relations. One of the lasting effects of the case was how it exposed cracks in Japan's high highly respect did police force see back in nineteen eighty three, Japan had a murder clearance rate of over ninety seven percent, meaning ninety seven percent of all murder cases were solved.
Okay, that's incredible when you're.
Looking at North America at the time being probably around seventy percent.
Wow.
But this group made this group made the police look powerless, and honestly, they made them look like fools. On top of it, tens of thousands of officers were involved at the time. Of course, over the years many more became involved, with over twenty eight thousand tips being followed up on, more than one hundred thousand suspects were investigated, and yet nothing,
not a single arrest occurred. Things got so tense that the head of Shiga Prefecture Police, Shigo Yamamoto, took his own life, reportedly out of shame of the department's failure.
The monster, I was just going to say, they're not used to really, by the sounds of it, right.
They're not. The monster with twenty one faces became legendary in Japan. They've been referenced in everything from crime thrillers to anime, often as mysterious figures who outwit the authorities and operate in the shadows part of why this case still captivates people is simple. No one ever got caught, not the fox eyed man, not the videotape man, not the people who wrote the letters or planted the poison candy.
And because Japan's Statute of limitations has long since expired, even if someone does confess tomorrow, there'd be no legal repercussions. But most of all, what makes a story feel like such an eerie case is even though they are now protected by law, still no one has come forward with any sort of information. They got away with it completely and are still keeping it all secret and under wraps
to this day. For many, that's the hardest part. The group got away with it completely, and we still don't know why they really did it to begin with. So here we are, decades later, in the case of the Monster with twenty one faces is still unsolved, no arrests, confessions, nothing. After all the threats, the fake outs, the poison candy, some reel, some not, and the massive financial damage to companies like Glico and Maringa, it's hard not to think
what was the endgame? Was it just money? If so, it's strange that the group never successfully collected any of the ransom demands, and they seemed almost casual about walking away from some of the deals police tried to make. Was it revenge, possibly, but they targeted multiple companies, not just one. Was it political, a warning about the power of corporations or weakness of police maybe? Or was it something else, like a twisted game. It's hard to say.
The group was theatrical, no doubt. They referenced fictional villains, they gave dramatic speeches, They played with the media. They taunted police in ways that felt more like pride than profit. In the end, it might have been less about money and more about control, providing they could make powerful people squirm and get away with it because they wanted to. A similar case today would probably play out very differently in the age of the Internet and social media, but
it also might spread faster and farther. And because this case has never been solved, it remains an example of what can happen when someone with a plan decides to test limits of power and patience. In the end, though the monster with twenty one faces left more than poison candy and burnt vehicles in their wake, they lift a permanent scar in Japan's collective memory a reminder that even in a society built on order and trust, someone can
still slip through the cracks. And whoever they were, whatever they wanted, they disappeared without a trace. And unless someone breaks their silence, that's how it's going to stay. And that's the story of the monster with twenty one faces.
Hmm, dang, dang. You know, I feel like it was probably a small I don't know, it seemed like it was so organized and stuff, but it has to have been like a small group since no one came forward, or I guess the crime group of sorts makes sense too.
If it's not a small group, it's a highly organized group with an an inner working that is very very intricate, like the yakuza. Because you're going to have hierarchies, you're gonna have tears, you're gonna have rules, and if you don't follow those rules, it's obvious what's gonna happen to you. Everyone knows, and it typically gets cut off before it has a chance of happening because it's such a you know,
intricate entity that operates that way. Yeah, or like you say, a small group where they can keep their mouths shut.
Yeah, or my only my other thought. But all the companies weren't necessarily in one group, like I'm some were candy, someone's processed meat or something, because then like, who was it a competitor of sorts that's you know, gonna like profit or become more popular from these companies not. But then if like, but that would make more sense if they were like all candy ones, you know.
But if it's all candy, then it would be obvious to look at a competitor. So what if you threw other ones in there as red herrings.
Tusche Because I'm just like these people, you know, they lost so much money, like they're they're letting go of people, and another candy candy company could like super profit and like hire these people and just like kill it from that, Really people might be buying that instead. But then also maybe they're not because people just stop buying that product altogether because terrified.
Yeah, people are probably just not buying much of candy and specifics. I imagine many of the other candy companies that weren't even targeted by this group were probably suffering and.
Stuff as well. But if you love candy, you know, could you just alright stop eating candy. You're a candy person.
I do like candy, but I mean, if it's being poisoned, yeah, I could stop it, but.
So easily you wouldn't. You wouldn't just go to another brand and like buy their candy.
If if multiple companies were being targeted, I would definitely stop candy altogether.
Yeah, yes, okay, I'm not that much.
Of a fatty.
Oh my gosh, that's not calling you a fat.
No, I know you weren't, but it's just like, I'm not going to just like that heavily rely on candy. Like honestly, I would even dare say I would stop buying chocolate.
Milk, beer.
Yes, I can make my own beer.
I could just start making it. Yeah shit, yeah, I guess just make You can make your own candies, And I was just thinking that, Yeah, no, if you want.
The sweets, if you got a sweet tooth like I do have a sweet tooth, I could probably just make candies at home. I probably like caramels. They're so easy to make. Probably just start making some caramel like little caramel candies.
Probably end up eating more candy though.
Probably probably huh wow. And then that'd start my own handy company selling caramels and.
Oh there you go, and you were the one that did it.
Dun dunt done.
Problems how it starts?
You can't convict me now, bitch? Is statue of limitation?
Yeah, this one is very interesting, how it just after this long just nothing? Yeah, so much effort was put into it too, So you'd be crazy.
You would think there'd be someone who says, you know, I know what happened, because I mean, after the statute limitations, like, what can you do? I know what happened. It's an interesting story to tell. I get my you know, five minutes of fame, you know, telling the story in a documentary or whatever.
I don't think you would benefit you in any way though. It would just make you seem like a complete evil asshole that everyone was searching for. There would be no benefit.
No, I mean someone who knows what happened.
Oh okay, you know, not the person who did it, but yeah, okay.
Because I can't imagine someone like that could have kept their mouth shut. Someone knows something. Someone has to have known something. Yeah, because even if it's a group of five just say it's a group of five friends, Okay, say it's like that, what's that movie Ocean's Eleven or something. It's a small group of people, right, like five six people or something or eleven people or whatever. They're not all going to be able to keep this story to
themselves forever. There's no way someone's going to slip up deathbed or evidence of something. So someone's going to have to know. And you'd think that someone would be like, oh, well, it doesn't matter.
Now, it's just yeah, no kidding.
Unless it was something like the Yakuza. So I'm willing to bet it's not a small time operation. If it was a small time operation, they probably would have had some money transferred somehow. That would have been a thing for them.
Well yeah, because you would want that, Like, what's the point of all this shit? Like there was? They were getting nothing of it? Really, I don't know. Gosh, this is a weird one.
This is to me, it makes sense to be the son of a yakuza.
Boss, But so what would it even have been doing for them?
Well, the reason why I think it makes sense to be the son of a yakuza boss. You have the boss, right, the cu the mob guy who tells people what to do. He's super respected and everything, and you have the son, right. The son is like, well he's he's that's my daddy. You gotta do what I say because that's my daddy, right, And so no one, no one respects you innately, right, You're just the boss's little brat. So then what do
you do. You got to make a name for yourself or maybe you know what, even you're just high on yourself and you don't need money or anything, so you just want to fuck with people, so you do it just for the shits and giggles. So either you're trying to build yourself a reputation.
And he started with the one that he did have a beef with. Yeah, and then oh man, this is fun and this is actually getting me kind of a reputation and like some street cred or whatever you want to say. And then he continues and.
Then it starts getting deep where you know what police are actually like offing themselves and shit. And then Daddy comes along and being like, okay, you're causing shit, like you need to shut this the fuck down. And then the little shit disturbing kids like okay, and then never does it again because he listens to Daddy. I guess that's my theory. He's a shit disturbing little shit that picture.
Yeah, I mean, god he did just like cause.
Hell, which is exactly the type you would expect from like a mob boss's son, to not give a fuck, to not understand, and to not need the money.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes the most sense out of anything else we've talked about, or it's going on in my.
Brain, it really does. But anyways, if you guys have theories, shoot us a message, shoot us an email. We'd love to hear it. Thank you for being here. You want to check out all our links and stuff, they're in the description of this podcast. And until next time, stay wicked.