Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Monster with 21 Faces
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: In the spring of nineteen eighty four, a Japanese candy
- 0:10Speaker 1: company executive was kidnapped from his own home while he
- 0:14Speaker 1: was soaking in the bathtub. What followed wasn't just a
- 0:18Speaker 1: ransom attempt. It was the beginning of a nationwide nightmare.
- 0:23Speaker 1: For the next seventeen months, an anonymous group launched a
- 0:27Speaker 1: relentless campaign of blackmail, arson, poison threats, and public humiliation,
- 0:34Speaker 1: and despite one of the largest investigations in Japanese history,
- 0:39Speaker 1: they were never canned. This is the unsolved story of
- 0:44Speaker 1: the Monster with twenty one faces.
- 0:48Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
- 0:52Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
- 0:56Speaker 1: The following podcast your real intended your audience listeners, Okay,
- 1:23Speaker 1: guess what what? That's what? Did you see that coming?
- 1:29Speaker 2: Not at all?
- 1:30Speaker 1: Well, I mean you're looking directly at me, so probably,
- 1:32Speaker 1: I'm sure.
- 1:33Speaker 2: Did. You're drinking beer? I'm drinking a hot chocolate. It's
- 1:37Speaker 2: a good night.
- 1:38Speaker 1: It's a good night for sure. If you haven't heard yet, Fearful,
- 1:44Speaker 1: our sibling podcast, came out with ten new episodes last
- 1:47Speaker 1: week and is now uploading every Wednesday.
- 1:50Speaker 2: Wow ding dang, Yeah.
- 1:52Speaker 1: Just gonna drop that there, and we'll leave it at that.
- 1:54Speaker 2: Drop that bomb. I mean, I'm sure a lot of
- 1:57Speaker 2: people have already listened, but there is a lot out
- 1:59Speaker 2: there that happens some.
- 2:00Speaker 1: Good stories too. But we have a good story today.
- 2:02Speaker 2: Have you ever heard of the sound? So?
- 2:04Speaker 1: Have you heard about this one? The master with twenty
- 2:06Speaker 1: one faces?
- 2:07Speaker 2: No, not even a little.
- 2:10Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when I
- 2:12Speaker 1: run across the case that I haven't heard of before.
- 2:15Speaker 1: It's like, oh, why haven't I heard of this one?
- 2:17Speaker 1: But then also at the same time, when you think
- 2:19Speaker 1: about it, my knowledge on true crime, even after hosting
- 2:22Speaker 1: a podcast with you about true crime for the last
- 2:25Speaker 1: like three four years, is only a drop of water
- 2:28Speaker 1: in the giant ocean that is yeah, world of true crime.
- 2:32Speaker 2: So it makes which is just sad it is yeah
- 2:38Speaker 2: and true crime. Okay, I'm just going to share this story.
- 2:41Speaker 2: I've already shared this with you, but I don't know
- 2:43Speaker 2: if this is like a good thing or a bad thing.
- 2:46Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, for dinner with a friend
- 2:49Speaker 2: and putting something in my back seat of my car.
- 2:51Speaker 2: She had like gone into the passenger side, and then
- 2:54Speaker 2: I seen these two guys just like staring, and then
- 2:57Speaker 2: they slowly like made their way over to the car,
- 3:00Speaker 2: and I was just like, oh my god, holy shit.
- 3:02Speaker 2: And I like hopped in the car and locked the
- 3:04Speaker 2: door like as quick as I can. And it's like, oh, man,
- 3:07Speaker 2: is it good to be that on edge? Or is
- 3:08Speaker 2: true crime fucking with me?
- 3:10Speaker 1: Well, you got it. You got to continue the story
- 3:11Speaker 1: and what happened? What did they do next?
- 3:13Speaker 2: Well, they continued walking like down the sidewalk. Okay, so
- 3:17Speaker 2: they crossed the road over to us. So I don't know.
- 3:20Speaker 2: My spidy sense was just like through the roof, were.
- 3:23Speaker 1: They engaging or anything? Did they engage in you talk to.
- 3:25Speaker 2: You like like watching?
- 3:28Speaker 1: Okay, So there we go. Don't get me wrong. Probably
- 3:31Speaker 1: good call, spidy sense.
- 3:32Speaker 2: You can get me too safe. You got to listen
- 3:34Speaker 2: to those gut feelings sometimes one hundred percent. But I
- 3:37Speaker 2: was just like, wow, it was probably.
- 3:39Speaker 1: Probably one of those situations where like nothing was gonna happen.
- 3:43Speaker 2: It was just a weird coincidence.
- 3:44Speaker 1: Yeah, but if on the off chance something might have, Yeah,
- 3:48Speaker 1: listened to your gut.
- 3:49Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, that was we have a finily
- 3:53Speaker 2: probably heard we have a dog hacking away in the background.
- 3:57Speaker 2: I think she ate some grass or something earlier, and
- 4:00Speaker 2: she's been doing that kind of off and on all night.
- 4:02Speaker 1: Well, I mean the sun shining, you know this, you know,
- 4:05Speaker 1: the outside weather is upon us and everything. She's been
- 4:08Speaker 1: enjoying herself outside, and honestly, I think there's a lot
- 4:10Speaker 1: of people who have been enjoying themselves like outside.
- 4:14Speaker 2: Recently, doing yard work and everything nice exactly.
- 4:18Speaker 1: And when they're out there doing the yardwork, they can
- 4:20Speaker 1: be listening to podcasts, and they can especially be listening
- 4:22Speaker 1: to behind the scenes content and exclusive episodes if they
- 4:25Speaker 1: sign up over on our Patreon, like these amazing people did,
- 4:29Speaker 1: like Rachelle, for example, or Rachel. I don't know if
- 4:32Speaker 1: it's Rochelle or Rachel because they're both always spelled like
- 4:34Speaker 1: the same.
- 4:35Speaker 2: But how's it spelled r A c hl. I think
- 4:38Speaker 2: that's Rachel.
- 4:39Speaker 1: Yeah, but I've seen people who have it Rachelle, but
- 4:41Speaker 1: it's spelt the same. Oh okay, I've also seen Raquel
- 4:44Speaker 1: spelt the same. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say Rachel.
- 4:48Speaker 1: Probably Rachel, Sophia Days, Melissa Bracken Henderson, Julia Ferrell, Shelby,
- 4:56Speaker 1: Chrissy Waite, Naomi Ortega, Joe Erronymous, I probably butchered your name, sorry,
- 5:03Speaker 1: Joe Ashanda eighty.
- 5:06Speaker 2: You know what, it's just part of your charm.
- 5:08Speaker 1: It's part of my charm. I can't rap for shit, right.
- 5:11Speaker 2: He butchered my name. That is just so like on brand.
- 5:15Speaker 1: It really is. But thank you guys so much for
- 5:17Speaker 1: signing up over in Patreon. We got a little bit
- 5:20Speaker 1: of a giveaway going on right now, so some of
- 5:22Speaker 1: you might be involved in it and doing a little
- 5:25Speaker 1: bit of a mystery puzzle solve thing as we go along.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah, there's always cool stuff going on in.
- 5:31Speaker 1: There always, But for now I think we should get
- 5:33Speaker 1: onto this case. Let's do it, okay. In the mid
- 5:36Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Japan was shaken by one of the most
- 5:38Speaker 1: bizarre and unsettling crime sprees in its modern history. And
- 5:42Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with murder, war or political scandal.
- 5:45Speaker 1: In fact, it had to do with something I guarantee
- 5:48Speaker 1: you you didn't see coming. You see, it all started
- 5:51Speaker 1: with Candy. That's right, Candy Candy. This is the story
- 5:57Speaker 1: of the monster with twenty one faces, a mystery that
- 6:00Speaker 1: begins with a kidnapping and spirals into something a lot stranger.
- 6:06Speaker 1: So it was on the night of March eighteenth, nineteen
- 6:08Speaker 1: eighty four. It was supposed to be, you know, just
- 6:11Speaker 1: a regular quiet Sunday, especially for Katsahushia Azaki, the president
- 6:16Speaker 1: of the Japanese candy giant Azaki Glico. He was just
- 6:21Speaker 1: chillin at his home in Nishiomia, a city near Kobe,
- 6:24Speaker 1: winding down from the day with a bath. His wife
- 6:27Speaker 1: and three young kids were getting ready for bed, and
- 6:30Speaker 1: his seventy year old mother was next door in her
- 6:32Speaker 1: townhouse on the same property. But that night, something terrifying happened.
- 6:37Speaker 1: Two masked men broke into Azaki's mother's house. First, they
- 6:41Speaker 1: tied her up, cut the phone lines, and took something
- 6:45Speaker 1: very specific, a key to Azaki's home, which was protected
- 6:50Speaker 1: by a security system. Now these guys weren't amateurs. They
- 6:53Speaker 1: clearly had done their homework. Using the stolen key, they
- 6:57Speaker 1: entered Azaki's house, tied up his wife and seven year
- 7:00Speaker 1: old daughter, then went straight for him. Now, Azaki was
- 7:04Speaker 1: still in the bath with his two other kids when
- 7:06Speaker 1: they found him. He screamed, but the men threatened to
- 7:09Speaker 1: harm his family if he didn't cooperate, so he had
- 7:12Speaker 1: no choice and he did as he was told, so
- 7:15Speaker 1: still soaking wet, he was dragged from his home completely
- 7:18Speaker 1: naked and stuffed into a car that was waiting.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Man, that would be very alarming.
- 7:26Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a full blown abduction. And this was
- 7:29Speaker 1: the president of one of Japan's most beloved candy companies
- 7:34Speaker 1: and he had just been kidnapped from his home. Yeah,
- 7:36Speaker 1: so this is specifically someone targeting a high order executive
- 7:40Speaker 1: from this company.
- 7:41Speaker 2: And you said he had like security and stuff, or
- 7:43Speaker 2: like a security system and shit. So they had been
- 7:46Speaker 2: planning this.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Shit, They did their homework for sure. Now, by the
- 7:50Speaker 1: next morning, a ransom note appeared, demanding roughly one billion yen,
- 7:55Speaker 1: which would equal approximately four point three million US dollars,
- 8:00Speaker 1: well as well as two hundred and twenty pounds of
- 8:03Speaker 1: gold bullion, which is refined gold typically at least ninety
- 8:07Speaker 1: nine point five percent pure, in the form of either
- 8:09Speaker 1: bars or coins.
- 8:10Speaker 2: Okay, I was hoping that it was going to be candy.
- 8:15Speaker 2: That would have made this a little bit more interesting
- 8:17Speaker 2: for me.
- 8:17Speaker 1: It's not. They didn't. They didn't ransom him for candy, Okay.
- 8:21Speaker 1: I have a feeling they wouldn't have talked to authorities
- 8:24Speaker 1: or got the authorities involved. It was just candy. They
- 8:26Speaker 1: would have taken him, been like unlock your factor, you
- 8:29Speaker 1: know what I mean.
- 8:30Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm just kidding.
- 8:32Speaker 1: So this whole situation though, with asking for four point
- 8:35Speaker 1: three million dollar US dollars and two hundred and twenty
- 8:39Speaker 1: pounds of gold, it sounds like an over the top
- 8:41Speaker 1: movie plot, if I'm being honest, But it was only
- 8:45Speaker 1: the beginning. Police responded quickly. There was a nationwide media blackout,
- 8:51Speaker 1: and it was all when this was all happening, was
- 8:53Speaker 1: put in place, and it was a massive search effort
- 8:55Speaker 1: that went underway immediately. But despite all their efforts, they
- 8:59Speaker 1: couldn't track down on the kidnappers or even figure out
- 9:02Speaker 1: who they were. In fact. Then three days later, on
- 9:05Speaker 1: March twenty first, Azaki managed to escape.
- 9:09Speaker 2: Okay, good for him.
- 9:11Speaker 1: He had been held in a warehouse not far from
- 9:15Speaker 1: the company Osaka's headquarters. At some point his captors apparently
- 9:19Speaker 1: let their guard down. Azaki loosened his ropes that were
- 9:22Speaker 1: tying him up. He broke through the door and fled
- 9:25Speaker 1: down the street barefoot, still wearing the simple clothes that
- 9:28Speaker 1: his abductor had given him to wear it because remember
- 9:30Speaker 1: he was captured from the bath, and he was nude
- 9:33Speaker 1: at the time, so he flagged down help from a
- 9:35Speaker 1: pair of railroad workers and was eventually reunited with his family.
- 9:39Speaker 1: He was shaken, but not physically harmed. He was safe. Now.
- 9:43Speaker 1: Even though Azaki escaped without a ransom being paid, the
- 9:47Speaker 1: people behind the kidnapping clearly weren't done. In fact, the
- 9:50Speaker 1: whole situation escalated almost immediately. A few weeks later after
- 9:56Speaker 1: the abduction, on April tenth, nineteen eighty four, someone set
- 9:59Speaker 1: fire to several vehicles in the parking lot of Glico's
- 10:02Speaker 1: company headquarters. So that's the company, the candy company factory, right, Okay,
- 10:07Speaker 1: so they actually set fire to the vehicles at that headquarters,
- 10:10Speaker 1: targeting them. Less than a week later, a plastic container
- 10:14Speaker 1: filled with hydrochloric acid was found inside of one of
- 10:17Speaker 1: Glico's buildings, the same in the city of I'm gonna
- 10:21Speaker 1: get this wrong. I'm going to try Ibaraki, which was
- 10:24Speaker 1: the same city where Azaki had been held captive. Now,
- 10:29Speaker 1: the container wasn't just there for shock value either. It
- 10:32Speaker 1: came with a note tying it directly back to the
- 10:34Speaker 1: same people responsible for that kidnapping. Which, since there's notes,
- 10:40Speaker 1: I should mention. There's also letters, and I mean there
- 10:44Speaker 1: was like over one hundred different letters that was sent
- 10:46Speaker 1: to the police over the course of this.
- 10:48Speaker 2: Case, like from the bad people. Yeah, from these well
- 10:53Speaker 2: doing the captives or whatever they're called.
- 10:56Speaker 1: Correct, So there's no way we can cover every single
- 10:59Speaker 1: letter this episode, just saying that. But they did begin
- 11:03Speaker 1: on April eighth, which is just a couple of days
- 11:06Speaker 1: backtracking here, and they were taunting. They were sarcastic, and
- 11:11Speaker 1: they were of course taunting the police directly. The tone
- 11:16Speaker 1: was subtle. Sorry, it wasn't subtle. One of the first
- 11:19Speaker 1: letters opened with quote to the stupid police, are you idiots?
- 11:24Speaker 2: WHOA, Yeah, that's harsh.
- 11:27Speaker 1: They're just like, how have you not caught us yet?
- 11:29Speaker 1: How have you not found out who we are yet?
- 11:31Speaker 1: What are you doing? They blame them for like wasting
- 11:34Speaker 1: tax payers dollars, Like if you can't catch us with
- 11:36Speaker 1: some of this information, like you're just like, what are
- 11:39Speaker 1: you doing?
- 11:39Speaker 2: But that's I feel like that's almost an insult to
- 11:42Speaker 2: them too, because are they wanting to be found? Then
- 11:45Speaker 2: it's sort of seeming so.
- 11:47Speaker 1: Well, let me continue here. Now. The letters written entirely
- 11:51Speaker 1: in Haragana, which and using Osaka dialect, the dialect at
- 11:55Speaker 1: the time, and the kanji's and everything. They seemed intentionally
- 11:58Speaker 1: childish and mocking. The group, still unnamed at this point,
- 12:02Speaker 1: claimed there were no insiders helping them, and they denied
- 12:06Speaker 1: any sort of ties to a Zakey's relatives or local
- 12:08Speaker 1: law enforcement, and dropped several clues. In fact, they were
- 12:12Speaker 1: saying that their getaway car they specifically told the police
- 12:15Speaker 1: our car was gray, and they told them, oh, and
- 12:18Speaker 1: by the way, we bought some food from this one
- 12:21Speaker 1: well known supermarket chain called the Dai. So they're like,
- 12:24Speaker 1: we bought some stuff from this grocery store. Our getaway
- 12:27Speaker 1: car was this color, and they're like, how can you
- 12:30Speaker 1: not fucking figure this out? So, whether they're trying to
- 12:33Speaker 1: get caught or they're just taunting them hard to.
- 12:36Speaker 2: Say yeah, because I'm imagining those I don't know, just
- 12:40Speaker 2: from being a total outsider, it doesn't seem like those
- 12:43Speaker 2: are really that hot of tips to me. I mean,
- 12:47Speaker 2: how many people are probably at that grocery store in
- 12:48Speaker 2: a day, well, how many people drive a gray car?
- 12:51Speaker 2: I don't know.
- 12:51Speaker 1: Still, they wrapped up this letter though, with another jab
- 12:55Speaker 1: at the police, saying, should we kidnap the head of
- 12:57Speaker 1: the prefectural police too.
- 12:59Speaker 2: Oh just yeez.
- 13:01Speaker 1: Sheer confidence in like we can get away with this
- 13:03Speaker 1: stuff if you can't get just right now, like we
- 13:06Speaker 1: know we can get away with this. So they weren't
- 13:09Speaker 1: just hiding in the shadows. They were openly taunting law
- 13:12Speaker 1: enforcement and the public and clearly keeping up with media coverage.
- 13:17Speaker 1: Police noted the regional dialect and the simplicity of the
- 13:20Speaker 1: writing style, which suggested the group might be local. Still,
- 13:23Speaker 1: none of the details led anywhere useful. The investigation was
- 13:27Speaker 1: stalling in the group, they clearly knew it too, so
- 13:31Speaker 1: things got a little more serious. In May of nineteen
- 13:35Speaker 1: eighty four, the group claimed that they had laced Glico's
- 13:38Speaker 1: candy products with potassium cyanide.
- 13:42Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
- 13:44Speaker 1: And then they said that they placed them back on
- 13:46Speaker 1: the store shelf.
- 13:47Speaker 2: Shit.
- 13:48Speaker 1: Now, whether this was real or not, it didn't matter.
- 13:50Speaker 1: The threat worked and Kiko was forced to pull every
- 13:53Speaker 1: product off the shelf, a move that costs the company
- 13:56Speaker 1: an estimated of twenty one million.
- 14:00Speaker 2: Dollars like US dollars we're talking here?
- 14:04Speaker 1: Yes?
- 14:05Speaker 2: Cool?
- 14:05Speaker 1: That one threat shut down production and it led to
- 14:08Speaker 1: the temporary layoff of four hundred and fifty part time
- 14:11Speaker 1: workers and said, shockwaves through the Japanese food industry.
- 14:15Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that is so scary because it's sort of
- 14:19Speaker 2: something you have to take seriously.
- 14:21Speaker 1: Exactly, but holy shit. Well and even if it's like okay,
- 14:26Speaker 1: we need to test to see if this is real,
- 14:29Speaker 1: it's going to take time to pull products to test them,
- 14:32Speaker 1: and you have to halt production because it's like no,
- 14:34Speaker 1: like you can't tell if it's coming from inside or not.
- 14:37Speaker 1: So you have to do a full investigation among the
- 14:40Speaker 1: testing as well. So they tested for these products or
- 14:43Speaker 1: testimony the products are poisoned. None was found, and it
- 14:45Speaker 1: just seemed like it was all a threat really, but
- 14:48Speaker 1: still just the fear alone was.
- 14:49Speaker 2: Enough in such a waste of money. And then you're
- 14:52Speaker 2: affecting other people's lives.
- 14:54Speaker 1: Yep.
- 14:55Speaker 2: I just think how many people, well, like say you
- 14:58Speaker 2: got laid off or whatever, and then how many people
- 15:00Speaker 2: in the world would have wanted that candy or you know,
- 15:03Speaker 2: needed food or something, and all the shit's just getting
- 15:05Speaker 2: thrown in the garbage exactly.
- 15:07Speaker 1: Well, and you're not even thinking of that. But also
- 15:09Speaker 1: the distributors' lives as well, the distributors who are supplying
- 15:11Speaker 1: the candy company with, you know, the ingredients to create
- 15:14Speaker 1: the candy. Yeah, so you have to think of the
- 15:16Speaker 1: layoffs on those ends as well. Yeah, it's a ripple
- 15:21Speaker 1: effect through a lot of a lot of industries. Now,
- 15:24Speaker 1: by the summer of nineteen eighty four, what started as
- 15:26Speaker 1: a single kidnapping had ballooned into a national crisis. The
- 15:30Speaker 1: letters were piling up, As I mentioned, there was like
- 15:33Speaker 1: over one hundred of them, The threats were getting bolder,
- 15:35Speaker 1: and the police, despite their massive efforts, still had no
- 15:39Speaker 1: idea who they were dealing with and who these people were.
- 15:42Speaker 1: And that's when the group finally settled on a name
- 15:45Speaker 1: for themselves. It was in June of nineteen eighty four
- 15:49Speaker 1: when they began signing the letters to the police as
- 15:52Speaker 1: quote the Monsters, Sorry, the monster with twenty one faces.
- 15:57Speaker 1: It wasn't just a random name though. They didn't just
- 15:59Speaker 1: come up with this and pull out of thin air.
- 16:01Speaker 1: It was a reference to a fictional villain from a
- 16:04Speaker 1: Japanese detective stories, a master of disguise who taunted police
- 16:08Speaker 1: and always managed to slip away.
- 16:12Speaker 2: You know, I don't love that they're just naming themselves.
- 16:16Speaker 1: That bothers me the name was not so much that
- 16:18Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we're cool and here's a cool name
- 16:22Speaker 1: for ourselves. It in itself is again another taunt in
- 16:25Speaker 1: jab at police. If you look at this character in fiction,
- 16:29Speaker 1: police were never able to catch them. That's what's going
- 16:32Speaker 1: to happen here. That's pretty much what they're doing. Okay,
- 16:36Speaker 1: So it was clear this wasn't just about money though.
- 16:38Speaker 1: Whoever these people were, they were trying to make a
- 16:40Speaker 1: statement and have some fun doing it too. That same month,
- 16:44Speaker 1: on June twenty sixth, The Monster with twenty one faces
- 16:47Speaker 1: sent out a strange letter to the media saying they
- 16:49Speaker 1: were done harassing Glico. In a weirdly playful tone, they
- 16:53Speaker 1: wrote this, the president of Glico has already gone around
- 16:57Speaker 1: with his head hanging down long enough off we would
- 17:01Speaker 1: like to forgive him. Japan has gotten terribly hot and humid.
- 17:05Speaker 1: So when our work is done, we want to go
- 17:07Speaker 1: to Europe. Geneva, Paris, London. We'll be in one of
- 17:11Speaker 1: those places. Let's bring Pockey, the Traveler's friend, delicious glicoproducts.
- 17:17Speaker 1: We're eating them too.
- 17:19Speaker 2: What the shit? What does that mean by forgive him?
- 17:23Speaker 1: That's the question. Who knows.
- 17:24Speaker 2: What the hell did he do?
- 17:26Speaker 1: We don't know, but we do know. It seems like
- 17:28Speaker 1: whatever he did, whatever the reason they have to target him,
- 17:32Speaker 1: they're forgiving him. They're leaving him alone there.
- 17:35Speaker 2: They feel like they've done enough damage or whatever, let's
- 17:38Speaker 2: move on exactly.
- 17:39Speaker 1: So they're also saying, when our work is done, they're
- 17:43Speaker 1: going to basically go on.
- 17:44Speaker 2: Vacation, and they're advertising his product for him now.
- 17:48Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're like, yeah, we're not targeting him anymore.
- 17:50Speaker 1: We're gonna go on vacation. We're gonna eat some candy.
- 17:52Speaker 1: That's what this basic this letter just basically said. And
- 17:55Speaker 1: just like that, it seemed like this nightmare was over.
- 17:58Speaker 1: No one had been hurt, there's no ransom that collected. Glico,
- 18:01Speaker 1: while badly bruised, was still standing and people assumed the
- 18:04Speaker 1: group had just got bored and moved on. But the
- 18:08Speaker 1: relief didn't last long. Only two days later, on June
- 18:12Speaker 1: twenty eighth, a new target emerged. This time it was
- 18:16Speaker 1: Muradi Ham, a food company known for its processed meat products.
- 18:21Speaker 1: They received a letter demanding fifty million yen, which is
- 18:24Speaker 1: equivalent to around two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars
- 18:27Speaker 1: at the time and instructions for a drop off of
- 18:30Speaker 1: the money. But what really caught everyone's attention wasn't the money,
- 18:34Speaker 1: it was the man who showed up to follow the plan.
- 18:38Speaker 1: So during the coordinated drop off of the money, right,
- 18:43Speaker 1: so it's like, drop off the money here at this location.
- 18:45Speaker 1: This time, an undercover officer disguised as a Maradi employee
- 18:49Speaker 1: noticed he had been followed by a suspicious man on
- 18:52Speaker 1: the train. So this guy who's, you know, supposedly a
- 18:57Speaker 1: part of the company dropping the money off as as instructed,
- 19:01Speaker 1: he's actually an officer, and he's like, okay, I'm being
- 19:04Speaker 1: I'm being trailed by someone, someone who's watching me. Now.
- 19:07Speaker 1: This officer described him as large, well built, with short
- 19:10Speaker 1: permed hair and narrow eyes, sharp eyes. Later police would
- 19:15Speaker 1: actually nickname him the fox eyed man.
- 19:19Speaker 2: Okay, that's quite a nickname.
- 19:21Speaker 1: So the officer tried to keep an eye on him,
- 19:23Speaker 1: even switching trains to throw him off, but the man
- 19:25Speaker 1: always seemed to stay one step ahead of him and
- 19:28Speaker 1: eventually slipped away without a trace. It was the closest
- 19:32Speaker 1: police had come to some potential someone potentially connected to
- 19:37Speaker 1: this group. However, it still wasn't close enough. This did
- 19:42Speaker 1: mark a turning point, though the group wasn't just hiding
- 19:45Speaker 1: behind letters anymore. They were making public moves, taunting law
- 19:48Speaker 1: enforcement and showing they were watching everything. They had money
- 19:53Speaker 1: drop off plans, and one particular one where the money
- 19:57Speaker 1: was supposed to be dropped off again to undercover officers.
- 20:00Speaker 1: No one showed up too money drop off, and a
- 20:03Speaker 1: letter came in where it was like, you guys think
- 20:05Speaker 1: you're slick, like we know you guys are officers? Like no,
- 20:10Speaker 1: they're like, we can tell by your shifty eyes. It
- 20:12Speaker 1: gave you away.
- 20:14Speaker 2: Yeah, so what how how would they be able to tell?
- 20:17Speaker 2: I guess, well, because are they thinking maybe if it
- 20:20Speaker 2: wasn't an officer, the person would be kind of acting
- 20:24Speaker 2: pretty nervous and stuff, and these officers weren't.
- 20:28Speaker 1: Well, they're not too sure that there's potentials that they
- 20:30Speaker 1: were using things like police scanners to like hear your conversations.
- 20:34Speaker 1: Maybe they were watching really closely, Maybe they recognized faces
- 20:37Speaker 1: of the police. Maybe they did their research on who
- 20:39Speaker 1: was who. It's hard to say now. The next major
- 20:43Speaker 1: target was one of Japan's biggest confectionery companies, Maringa and Co.
- 20:49Speaker 1: And this time they weren't just threatening. They followed through
- 20:51Speaker 1: on their actions. It was October nineteen eighty four letters
- 20:57Speaker 1: began showing up once again, but this time, instead of
- 20:59Speaker 1: targeting company executives or police, the group addressed their message
- 21:04Speaker 1: directly to mums of the nation. The letter claimed that
- 21:08Speaker 1: the group had laced Maringa candy with cyanide, and they
- 21:13Speaker 1: were not bluffing this time. They included chilling lines like quote,
- 21:19Speaker 1: We've added some special flavor. The flavor of potassium cyanide
- 21:22Speaker 1: is a little bitter. It won't cause tooth decay, So
- 21:25Speaker 1: buy the suites for your kids. Yeah, not exactly a
- 21:30Speaker 1: typical product pitch, but that's what they said. Now. Along
- 21:33Speaker 1: with a letter came a terrifying announcement twenty boxes of
- 21:37Speaker 1: poison candy had been planted across stores in Japan from
- 21:42Speaker 1: Tokyo to Hakata. Police of course, with this new information,
- 21:47Speaker 1: say okay, there's potentially twenty boxes of cyanide lace candy
- 21:51Speaker 1: out there, got a pull it. They jumped into action.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of officers were deployed to comb through
- 21:57Speaker 1: grocery stores, convenience shops, and department store shelves. They found
- 22:01Speaker 1: the candy.
- 22:03Speaker 2: It was it was legit.
- 22:04Speaker 1: It was legit. They found eighteen, not twenty oh no,
- 22:10Speaker 1: but they found eighteen tainted packages, including Choco Balls and
- 22:15Speaker 1: Angel Pies, two of Marenga's most popular treats. Six of
- 22:20Speaker 1: them contained lethal doses of cyanide. Thankfully, every one of
- 22:24Speaker 1: those packages had been labeled. The group had placed a
- 22:28Speaker 1: sticker on the box that said things like danger contains poisoned,
- 22:31Speaker 1: You'll die if you eat this. The monster with twenty
- 22:35Speaker 1: one faces. So they actually labeled each package that they
- 22:38Speaker 1: did poison.
- 22:39Speaker 2: Okay, well, where are those other two? That would drive
- 22:42Speaker 2: me freaking nuts? And seriously, if you consume this you
- 22:45Speaker 2: would just die. It's done. Yeah, ah, that's scary.
- 22:51Speaker 1: Well I imagine if they didn't label it, I guess.
- 22:55Speaker 2: But do you trust these people that they're actually freaking
- 22:58Speaker 2: only doing it to ones they label I don't know.
- 23:00Speaker 2: I wouldn't trust them at all.
- 23:01Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, though it sounds strange, but like
- 23:04Speaker 1: with these warning labels, like no one did die. Not
- 23:07Speaker 1: a single person was poisoned, and it most likely the
- 23:11Speaker 1: damage was avoided because of those labels.
- 23:15Speaker 2: Okay, so they're not It's almost seeming like they're not
- 23:18Speaker 2: wanting people to die.
- 23:19Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like they want to hurt people. It does.
- 23:22Speaker 2: They're hurting people, well, they don't want them to I
- 23:26Speaker 2: guess physically be hurt.
- 23:28Speaker 1: They're not wanting to harm a person physically. I guess
- 23:32Speaker 1: they don't want their direct actions to harm someone physically.
- 23:36Speaker 1: How's that for a sentence that makes sense?
- 23:38Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, there we go.
- 23:40Speaker 1: Now. Marenga's entire product line had been pulled from store shelves.
- 23:44Speaker 1: They're sales plummeted by more than sixty percent. Hundreds of
- 23:47Speaker 1: part time workers once again lost their jobs. Parents across
- 23:50Speaker 1: Japan were afraid to buy sweets with their children. Trust
- 23:53Speaker 1: in major brands were shattered overnight, and the threats didn't
- 23:57Speaker 1: stomp there. In February nineteen eighty five, police found another
- 24:02Speaker 1: round of poison candy in the city of Osaka, Tokyo
- 24:05Speaker 1: and Kyoto. These two were marked with the warning labels,
- 24:08Speaker 1: but it was clear that the monster was keeping their promise.
- 24:12Speaker 1: They said that there would be thirty buckses next time,
- 24:14Speaker 1: and some might not be labeled at all. So it's
- 24:18Speaker 1: this escalating warning of next time, next time, next time,
- 24:22Speaker 1: and they have followed through. In a couple so far. Yep,
- 24:24Speaker 1: so maybe they're not just threats.
- 24:27Speaker 2: But I'm sorry, this is the same product.
- 24:31Speaker 1: No, it's going on for like different products and stuff.
- 24:34Speaker 2: No, but the same company. Sorry I mean or no.
- 24:37Speaker 1: I believe this one was the same company as well.
- 24:39Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, they're just destroying like, oh, this is maddening
- 24:43Speaker 2: to me because they're just destroying these people's like hard
- 24:45Speaker 2: work and shit. Yeah, and oh it was ruining jobs.
- 24:50Speaker 1: And dang, it was a nightmare on it was a
- 24:52Speaker 1: national nightmare because not only are you destroying like these jobs,
- 24:55Speaker 1: not only are you destroying the reputation of companies, you're
- 24:57Speaker 1: destroying trust from companies to family homes.
- 25:00Speaker 2: Very hard to build that.
- 25:02Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're destroying the homes themselves because people are
- 25:05Speaker 1: so afraid of what they can and cannot eat. So
- 25:08Speaker 1: I'm sure people are refusing to eat things that they
- 25:11Speaker 1: do not know exactly where they came from and had
- 25:14Speaker 1: hands in them themselves. So there's a lot of probably
- 25:16Speaker 1: food waste, which means people starving and going hungry. It again,
- 25:21Speaker 1: this major domino effect that's going to ripple across the
- 25:24Speaker 1: entire nation.
- 25:25Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not even like something that can be kept quiet. No,
- 25:29Speaker 2: you know, definitely needs to be bout there.
- 25:31Speaker 1: So this is a public safety issue. So they have
- 25:34Speaker 1: a letter that says candy distributed publicly is poisoned. Right now,
- 25:40Speaker 1: you can't not say anything. You have to be like,
- 25:43Speaker 1: don't fucking buy this candy, public recall?
- 25:46Speaker 2: Yeah and right away.
- 25:47Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Japan has never experienced a crime like this.
- 25:51Speaker 1: When that's struck at something as simple and innocent as candy,
- 25:54Speaker 1: grocery stores became crime scenes. Parents were panicked, and the
- 25:57Speaker 1: police they were still just chasing these shadows of who
- 26:01Speaker 1: was this monster with twenty one faces. Now, the fox
- 26:06Speaker 1: eyed man who instantly became the police prime suspect, wasn't
- 26:10Speaker 1: the only lead. In a separate incident, Surveillance footage from
- 26:14Speaker 1: a store captured another man placing what looked like a
- 26:18Speaker 1: recalled Glico product back on a shelf, or maybe not recall,
- 26:22Speaker 1: but just a product itself, because right around that same time,
- 26:25Speaker 1: Glico products were being laced with poison, so this could
- 26:31Speaker 1: be one of those ones that was laced right being
- 26:34Speaker 1: put onto the shelf. Okay, Now, the footage was grainy,
- 26:37Speaker 1: but the man wore a Yumi Yuri Giant's baseball cap,
- 26:40Speaker 1: a business suit and glasses. This person became known as
- 26:45Speaker 1: the quote videotaped man, and for a while it seemed
- 26:48Speaker 1: like investigators were finally starting to get some leads and
- 26:52Speaker 1: they're beginning to close in. Then came the real twist.
- 26:57Speaker 1: Police thought they might actually have identified the fox eyed man.
- 27:02Speaker 1: A sketch of the suspect was made public in early
- 27:04Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, and it looked strikingly similar to an
- 27:07Speaker 1: individual by the name of Manibu Miyazaki, the son of
- 27:12Speaker 1: a yakuza boss and a man with a criminal passed now.
- 27:17Speaker 1: Miyazaki had been involved in a labor dispute with Glico
- 27:21Speaker 1: a decade earlier, and some of the people investigating the
- 27:24Speaker 1: case were convinced that he was their guy, But once
- 27:28Speaker 1: police checked out his alibi, it actually held up. He
- 27:32Speaker 1: was in a different location during several of the incidents.
- 27:35Speaker 1: The connection was circumstantial at best, and without heart evidence,
- 27:39Speaker 1: they just had to let it go. Miyazaka was never charged.
- 27:43Speaker 1: There was resemblance to the sketches continue to fuel a
- 27:46Speaker 1: lot of speculation around.
- 27:47Speaker 2: His name well, and it sounds like he had reason,
- 27:51Speaker 2: or not necessarily good reason, but to have like a
- 27:54Speaker 2: beef with them.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Yeah he had motive.
- 27:57Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, motive. That's a lot. He's your way of
- 28:00Speaker 2: putting it fair enough. Yeah.
- 28:02Speaker 1: Now, even with these glimpses, the fox eyed man on
- 28:04Speaker 1: the train, the videotape man in the store, and the
- 28:07Speaker 1: possible idea of Miyazaki, the monster with twenty one faces
- 28:11Speaker 1: always seemed to stay one step ahead, and by the
- 28:14Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty five, they had been tormenting Japan
- 28:17Speaker 1: for over a year. Food companies were just bleeding money.
- 28:22Speaker 1: Public anxiety was through the roof, and police, despite throwing
- 28:26Speaker 1: everything they had at the case, still had no arrests,
- 28:29Speaker 1: no names, and no real progress. For many people, the
- 28:33Speaker 1: constant chaos felt like a bad dream, just that wouldn't end.
- 28:37Speaker 1: But for one man, the pressure became too much for
- 28:40Speaker 1: him to bear. His name was Superintendent Shoji Yamamoto. He
- 28:46Speaker 1: was in charge of the investigation in Shiga Prefecture, one
- 28:50Speaker 1: of the key regions that was involved in the case.
- 28:52Speaker 1: Right so now, Yamamoto was a seasoned officer with a
- 28:56Speaker 1: long career, but the failure to catch the monster was
- 29:00Speaker 1: weighing heavily on him. His department had come close to
- 29:04Speaker 1: catching the group during a filled money drop involving the
- 29:07Speaker 1: Fox side Man, but like everything else in the case,
- 29:09Speaker 1: that lead just slipped away. On August seventh, nineteen eighty five,
- 29:15Speaker 1: Yamamoto reached a breaking point. In an act of despair
- 29:19Speaker 1: and shame, he poured kerosene over himself in his backyard
- 29:23Speaker 1: and set himself on fire.
- 29:25Speaker 2: Oh man, he.
- 29:27Speaker 1: Died shortly after, and his death shocked the entire country.
- 29:31Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, so now like someone has gotten physically hurt.
- 29:38Speaker 1: Yes, someone has died because of this. He was basically, yeah,
- 29:43Speaker 1: he felt so much shame from not being able to
- 29:45Speaker 1: solve this case. Yep, that he Yeah, he committed suicide.
- 29:49Speaker 3: That is terrible, terrible. It is so fricking sad. Now
- 29:53Speaker 3: the tragedy sent a powerful ripple through Japan. The monster
- 29:57Speaker 3: with twenty one faces had taken no lives, at least
- 30:00Speaker 3: not directly, but now a respected law enforcement officer was dead,
- 30:04Speaker 3: and it was impossible to ignore the connection.
- 30:07Speaker 2: Yep.
- 30:08Speaker 1: Yamamoto's suicide was seen as a symbol of emotional toll
- 30:11Speaker 1: This unsolved case had taken not just on the public,
- 30:15Speaker 1: but on the people trying to stop it. Five days later,
- 30:20Speaker 1: on October twelfth, the Monster said one final letter. It
- 30:24Speaker 1: began coldly. Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture police died. How stupid
- 30:31Speaker 1: of him.
- 30:35Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the fucking letter.
- 30:38Speaker 1: That's how it started.
- 30:40Speaker 2: Okay, what a bunch of assholes.
- 30:42Speaker 1: Yeah. The tone, as always was mocking in cruel, but
- 30:45Speaker 1: surprisingly the message also marked a turning point, and the
- 30:49Speaker 1: letter continued to say this, Yamamoto died like a man,
- 30:54Speaker 1: So we decided to give our condolences. We decided to
- 30:58Speaker 1: forget about our torturing food making companies. They added that
- 31:03Speaker 1: if any similar crimes happened in the future, it wouldn't
- 31:06Speaker 1: be them, just copycats. And just like that, the Monster
- 31:11Speaker 1: with twenty one faces stopped and disappeared entirely. No more letters,
- 31:17Speaker 1: no more threats, no more poison candy. It was over.
- 31:22Speaker 1: After seventeen months of terror, taunting and nationwide fear, the
- 31:26Speaker 1: monster with twenty one faces just walked away.
- 31:30Speaker 2: Okay, So I mean obviously that affected them more than
- 31:35Speaker 2: they were kind of like letting onto or alluding to.
- 31:38Speaker 1: Well again, I don't think that they were in intending
- 31:42Speaker 1: for anyone to come to harm, so.
- 31:44Speaker 2: But still they had they were intending on a lot,
- 31:47Speaker 2: Like a lot of shit happened, so I don't quite
- 31:50Speaker 2: understand the reason of doing this. It doesn't make any
- 31:54Speaker 2: sense to me. Well, it seems well we even have
- 31:57Speaker 2: gained Really are they gaining money? I guess they are
- 31:59Speaker 2: gain money from these like drops and stuff.
- 32:03Speaker 1: None of them ever occurred, no handover ever happened.
- 32:08Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, makes no sense. Then this makes no sense.
- 32:12Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the case of the Monster with twenty
- 32:15Speaker 1: one faces. Because it don't make no sense.
- 32:19Speaker 2: No, it really doesn't, and it just pisses y'af.
- 32:22Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not wrong, because I'm pissed off. Yeah, and
- 32:27Speaker 1: you clearly are too well, because.
- 32:29Speaker 2: I'm like, am I missing something here? What the hell
- 32:32Speaker 2: is happening?
- 32:32Speaker 1: No, you're right there with me.
- 32:35Speaker 2: It's just a bunch of assholes, calls and shit.
- 32:39Speaker 1: It's funny because I can hear you yelling at me
- 32:41Speaker 1: in the back of my head. I can hear our
- 32:43Speaker 1: friend Larissa yelling at me too. I know it's happening
- 32:46Speaker 1: right now.
- 32:46Speaker 2: Oh and it's not just us, no, guaranteed. You know
- 32:50Speaker 2: people should comment how many times are you yelling at Ben?
- 32:53Speaker 1: Oh? God?
- 32:53Speaker 2: Through one episode?
- 32:54Speaker 1: Non stop? Guaranteed. Anyways, we digress now, once a monster
- 32:59Speaker 1: with twenty one faces went silent in August of nineteen
- 33:02Speaker 1: eighty five. It wasn't like the case was just dropped.
- 33:05Speaker 1: If anything, law enforcement they doubled down. Just because the
- 33:10Speaker 1: perpetrator is done doesn't mean they are right.
- 33:12Speaker 2: That's good.
- 33:13Speaker 1: The Japanese public wanted answers, and the authorities were still
- 33:16Speaker 1: hoping they could deliver some kind of resolution. But as
- 33:20Speaker 1: the months passed and then the years passed, the reality
- 33:23Speaker 1: became harder and harder to deny. The case was going cold.
- 33:29Speaker 1: In total, more than one million officers have been involved
- 33:32Speaker 1: in some capacity through investigation on this case. This wasn't
- 33:37Speaker 1: just a local effort. It was one of the largest
- 33:39Speaker 1: man hunts in Japanese history. Dang police followed over twenty
- 33:45Speaker 1: eight thousand tips and investigated nearly one hundred and twenty
- 33:50Speaker 1: five thousand individuals. Hoping that someone somewhere might slip up,
- 33:56Speaker 1: they leaned heavily on the few pieces of concrete evidence
- 33:58Speaker 1: they had. Security camera image of the so called videotape
- 34:02Speaker 1: man placing candy on the store shelf, the police sketch
- 34:05Speaker 1: of the fox eyed man who had been spotted shadowing
- 34:08Speaker 1: undercover officers during one of the ransom attempts. It yeah,
- 34:12Speaker 1: the letters, like all of it. They focused on these
- 34:15Speaker 1: sort of things.
- 34:17Speaker 2: So I guess you can't say that they didn't try exactly,
- 34:20Speaker 2: that they haven't put their best effort in.
- 34:21Speaker 1: Eh, well, that's the thing they did. Yeah, but none
- 34:26Speaker 1: of it led anywhere, not a match, not an arrest,
- 34:29Speaker 1: not even a solid lead. The group had managed to
- 34:31Speaker 1: carry out an incredibly public and far reaching crime spree
- 34:35Speaker 1: without ever being identified. As time passed, public attention eventually
- 34:41Speaker 1: started to fade, but the police stayed on it until
- 34:44Speaker 1: the clock ran out. See, there's something called the statue
- 34:48Speaker 1: of limitations, and Japan has one. Japan has a statute
- 34:53Speaker 1: of limitations on criminal charges, and that meant that there
- 34:55Speaker 1: was an expiration date on the justice that could occur.
- 34:59Speaker 1: Nicole literally took her glasses off and is rubbing her
- 35:02Speaker 1: face in like anger and disappointment.
- 35:04Speaker 2: Right, well, yeah, I'm just like wow.
- 35:08Speaker 1: The kidnapping of GLICO president Katsuhushi Izaki expired on March
- 35:14Speaker 1: in March of nineteen ninety four. The charges for attempted
- 35:17Speaker 1: murder and extortion expired in February two thousand. The week
- 35:22Speaker 1: before the final charge expired, Japan's National Police Agency held
- 35:26Speaker 1: a press conference where they admitted defeat publicly quote, it
- 35:33Speaker 1: is extremely regrettable that we could not apprehend the suspects.
- 35:38Speaker 1: It is indispensable that we make this an important lesson
- 35:42Speaker 1: for our future investigations. And just like that, the monster
- 35:48Speaker 1: with twenty one faces that case was officially closed, and
- 35:52Speaker 1: if the culprit, if they're still out there, they're now untouchable.
- 35:58Speaker 2: So like even if they came forward, nothing would come.
- 36:03Speaker 2: Would it happen?
- 36:04Speaker 1: Correct? They can walk into a police station say I
- 36:08Speaker 1: did it, Say my dad did it, or my uncle
- 36:11Speaker 1: did it, my mom did it, my sister whoever. They
- 36:14Speaker 1: could interview them. They can give evidence, publicly, make a documentary,
- 36:20Speaker 1: no repercussions.
- 36:22Speaker 2: Well, I kind of forgot about that. I need to
- 36:25Speaker 2: like look into that. How many places have that because
- 36:28Speaker 2: that's wild to me.
- 36:30Speaker 1: Statute of limitations. Yeah, yeah, Now, of course, there are
- 36:34Speaker 1: a lot of theories that are surrounding this case on
- 36:37Speaker 1: who could be responsible, you know, who did it? So
- 36:40Speaker 1: let's walk through some of the most talked about ones.
- 36:42Speaker 2: I just have to say one thing. The thing that
- 36:45Speaker 2: is bothering me is it would be easier to digest
- 36:48Speaker 2: and understand this if it was just like one company, right,
- 36:52Speaker 2: But the fact that they did this to like multiple
- 36:55Speaker 2: is what is I'm having trouble making sense of because
- 37:00Speaker 2: they it's okay, maybe they just don't like this company,
- 37:03Speaker 2: someone working there, the owner, someone high up they don't like.
- 37:07Speaker 2: But it's like not just one.
- 37:09Speaker 1: Yep, that's correct.
- 37:11Speaker 2: So that's why I'm having so much trouble.
- 37:13Speaker 1: Now, as far as I can tell through researching this case,
- 37:16Speaker 1: the only connections between the food companies is their processed foods,
- 37:21Speaker 1: the processed meats, the candies. It's processed foods.
- 37:26Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all I got, which makes sense, though I
- 37:31Speaker 2: don't know, like it's heat because big companies. I don't
- 37:36Speaker 2: know big companies. There isn't really big companies for like
- 37:39Speaker 2: fruits and shit, is there? You know? Yes, I guess,
- 37:43Speaker 2: but I don't know. Okay, Prick, My brain is like
- 37:48Speaker 2: trying to solve this. Good luck, but I want to
- 37:51Speaker 2: hear these theories.
- 37:52Speaker 1: Well, how many officers did I say were involved in
- 37:55Speaker 1: this over the million? Yea, more than one million officers
- 37:59Speaker 1: have been involved in some capacity through the investigation. One million,
- 38:04Speaker 1: no offense. But I don't think you or I are
- 38:06Speaker 1: going to solve it if one million officers.
- 38:08Speaker 2: Oh no, we're gonna do it right here, right now,
- 38:11Speaker 2: right now, We're gonna stay on this podcast and Tilt solved.
- 38:14Speaker 2: Oh shit, just kidding.
- 38:16Speaker 1: Anyways, as far as theories go, there's of course the
- 38:20Speaker 1: fox side man. It's probably the closest police ever got
- 38:24Speaker 1: to catching someone, and he was spotting spotty spotted during
- 38:27Speaker 1: the spot hit. There we go. During one of the
- 38:31Speaker 1: ransom drop attempts, I'm tailing an undercover cob on the train.
- 38:35Speaker 1: Witnesses said he had eyes like a fox, wore glasses
- 38:37Speaker 1: and a solid build, and he seemed to be watching
- 38:39Speaker 1: the operation a little too closely. Police trailed him but
- 38:43Speaker 1: lost him in the crowd. Then not long after, he
- 38:45Speaker 1: actually popped up again, this time near another ransom drop
- 38:49Speaker 1: connected to house foods. Same build, same glasses, same vibe
- 38:53Speaker 1: sort of thing. Right, The police got a sketch out
- 38:56Speaker 1: in the public and for a while he was Japan's
- 38:58Speaker 1: most wanted face. But yeah, never found and never identified
- 39:02Speaker 1: to this day. Then there's the videotaped man. In his incident,
- 39:07Speaker 1: a security camera caught a man in a baseball cap,
- 39:10Speaker 1: a Yumiyuri Giant's cap. Specifically, he was placing glico candy
- 39:14Speaker 1: back onto a store shelf. This was around the time
- 39:17Speaker 1: the group claimed to be tainting sweets with cyanide. That
- 39:20Speaker 1: footage was grainy and old, but it was enough to
- 39:22Speaker 1: give him a nickname, the videotape Man. Then there was
- 39:28Speaker 1: Miyazaki Guy, who was an actual name suspect for a time.
- 39:33Speaker 1: He looked a lot like the fox eyde Man and
- 39:35Speaker 1: had a criminal record. Even more suspicious, he had a
- 39:38Speaker 1: long standing grudge against Glico, including a labor dispute from
- 39:41Speaker 1: about a decade earlier. His father was a known yakuza
- 39:45Speaker 1: boss and had been in trouble with the police before. Basically,
- 39:48Speaker 1: on paper, he looked like he was the perfect suspect,
- 39:51Speaker 1: but he had an alibi that held up tight. He
- 39:54Speaker 1: denied everything. He was never charged and even wrote a
- 39:57Speaker 1: book about what it was like to be falsely accused
- 39:59Speaker 1: on such a high profile case.
- 40:01Speaker 2: He makes it makes sense, though.
- 40:03Speaker 1: It does a lot of people still wonder if he
- 40:06Speaker 1: was involved, maybe not even directly, but as a planner
- 40:09Speaker 1: or maybe advisor. But there's no proof there. It's just speculation.
- 40:14Speaker 1: Then there's the revenge theory. It's one of the more
- 40:17Speaker 1: compelling ideas, and it's that it's a long game revenge
- 40:22Speaker 1: for a tragedy from almost thirty years earlier. Back in
- 40:26Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, the company Maringa had a major scandal
- 40:30Speaker 1: arsenic poisoning in their baby formula. Over twelve thousand infants
- 40:35Speaker 1: were affected and more than one hundred of them died.
- 40:39Speaker 1: Survivors of that disaster would have been in their late
- 40:41Speaker 1: twenties or early thirties by the time the Monster with
- 40:44Speaker 1: twenty one faces showed up. Well, yeah, so could this
- 40:48Speaker 1: have been their way of getting back of the company
- 40:49Speaker 1: that hurt them? I mean, maybe it would explain why
- 40:53Speaker 1: the company Maringa in particular was targeted with actual poisoned candy.
- 40:58Speaker 1: But then again, the group several companies, not just Maringa,
- 41:02Speaker 1: so that revenge theory, at least on that incident only
- 41:06Speaker 1: goes so far right.
- 41:07Speaker 2: And like I said, if it was just that company,
- 41:10Speaker 2: it would make sense.
- 41:11Speaker 1: Yeap. Now there's the corporate sabotage angle. This one's a
- 41:17Speaker 1: bit out there, but still interesting. Some believe the Monster
- 41:20Speaker 1: with twenty one faces was part of a stock market
- 41:22Speaker 1: manipulation scheme. The idea scare investors tank the company's stock price,
- 41:29Speaker 1: buy low, then stop the attacks. And sell high when
- 41:32Speaker 1: the stock rebounds, rints and repeat. Problem is, there's no
- 41:37Speaker 1: actual evidence of this happening. It's more of a hypothetical
- 41:41Speaker 1: what if scenario. Still, it taps into just how much
- 41:44Speaker 1: economic damage the group caused because millions of dollars in losses,
- 41:49Speaker 1: stock price is free falling and massive layoffs actually occurred.
- 41:53Speaker 2: Well, and wouldn't you I feel like that one would
- 41:55Speaker 2: be a bit trackable.
- 41:57Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing, it would be. But there's no
- 41:59Speaker 1: evidence of any sort of pump and dump occurring at
- 42:01Speaker 1: that time. Okay, Yeah, So then there's the ACUZA connection.
- 42:07Speaker 1: Given the coordination and discipline behind the attack, some investigators
- 42:11Speaker 1: believe the ACUSA might have been involved. The timing lined
- 42:14Speaker 1: up with the internal conflict with Japan's biggest crime syndicate,
- 42:19Speaker 1: the Yamaguchi Gumi. Maybe the monster with twenty one faces
- 42:22Speaker 1: was a rogue faction trying to raise funds or just
- 42:25Speaker 1: cause chaos. But like most of these theories, this one
- 42:28Speaker 1: hit a wall. No hard evidence, you know, nothing ever
- 42:32Speaker 1: showing up of tying a group like this from organized
- 42:35Speaker 1: crime to this event ever came to. So it's just
- 42:39Speaker 1: a dart at a dart board seeing if it hits
- 42:41Speaker 1: something sort of thing. There's also a idea of it
- 42:46Speaker 1: being a political plot, so there's speculation that this could
- 42:50Speaker 1: have been a covert operation by a foreign government, North
- 42:53Speaker 1: Korea being the usual suspect. That might sound far fetched,
- 42:57Speaker 1: but Japan has had its share of strange by like
- 43:00Speaker 1: incidents involving North Korea. Still, in this case, it's just
- 43:04Speaker 1: another theory with no solid proof backing it. Regardless of
- 43:08Speaker 1: the theories, though, the truth behind the monster with twenty
- 43:11Speaker 1: one faces vanished in nineteen eighty five, but their impact
- 43:15Speaker 1: didn't not even close. This case didn't just shake up
- 43:18Speaker 1: a few candy companies. It changed the way Japan thought
- 43:21Speaker 1: about safety, corporate security, and even law enforcement. See Back
- 43:26Speaker 1: in the eighties, Japan had one of the lowest crime
- 43:28Speaker 1: rates in the world. Violent crimes were rare, random crime
- 43:32Speaker 1: was even rarer, and most people felt safe doing things
- 43:36Speaker 1: like buying candy off a store shelf without a second thought. That,
- 43:40Speaker 1: of course, changed fast after the threats to poisoned products
- 43:44Speaker 1: in constant media coverage. People started second guessing everything. Was
- 43:48Speaker 1: this candy safe? Could the police really protect anyone? The
- 43:51Speaker 1: idea that a group could operate in public view for
- 43:54Speaker 1: over a year. Taunting police the whole time made the
- 43:56Speaker 1: public feel like things weren't as secure as they seemed.
- 44:00Speaker 1: Even after no one was physically harmed, at least not directly,
- 44:04Speaker 1: the psychological impact was real. Parents were scared, stores had
- 44:09Speaker 1: to beef up security, and businesses had to learn a
- 44:11Speaker 1: harsh lesson about how vulnerable they were outside of threat
- 44:15Speaker 1: vulnerable they were two outside threats. Sorry. So the damage
- 44:19Speaker 1: to candy industry was also a was very palpable and heavy.
- 44:23Speaker 1: It was emotional and financial too. Glico reported a loss
- 44:26Speaker 1: of around one hundred and thirty million in sales. Maringa
- 44:30Speaker 1: saw sales plummet by sixty percent. Entire product lines were
- 44:34Speaker 1: pulled off shells, Thousands of part time workers were laid off.
- 44:37Speaker 1: Companies didn't just take a hit, they got gutted. Even
- 44:40Speaker 1: after the case went cold, it took a long time
- 44:42Speaker 1: for the public to trust those brands again, and companies
- 44:45Speaker 1: across Japan, not just the food industry, had to rethink
- 44:48Speaker 1: how they handled security, crisis response, and public relations. One
- 44:54Speaker 1: of the lasting effects of the case was how it
- 44:56Speaker 1: exposed cracks in Japan's high highly respect did police force
- 45:01Speaker 1: see back in nineteen eighty three, Japan had a murder
- 45:04Speaker 1: clearance rate of over ninety seven percent, meaning ninety seven
- 45:10Speaker 1: percent of all murder cases were solved.
- 45:14Speaker 2: Okay, that's incredible when you're.
- 45:16Speaker 1: Looking at North America at the time being probably around
- 45:18Speaker 1: seventy percent.
- 45:19Speaker 2: Wow.
- 45:20Speaker 1: But this group made this group made the police look powerless,
- 45:23Speaker 1: and honestly, they made them look like fools. On top
- 45:26Speaker 1: of it, tens of thousands of officers were involved at
- 45:29Speaker 1: the time. Of course, over the years many more became involved,
- 45:33Speaker 1: with over twenty eight thousand tips being followed up on,
- 45:36Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand suspects were investigated, and yet nothing,
- 45:40Speaker 1: not a single arrest occurred. Things got so tense that
- 45:46Speaker 1: the head of Shiga Prefecture Police, Shigo Yamamoto, took his
- 45:52Speaker 1: own life, reportedly out of shame of the department's failure.
- 45:57Speaker 2: The monster, I was just going to say, they're not
- 45:59Speaker 2: used to really, by the sounds of it, right.
- 46:02Speaker 1: They're not. The monster with twenty one faces became legendary
- 46:06Speaker 1: in Japan. They've been referenced in everything from crime thrillers
- 46:09Speaker 1: to anime, often as mysterious figures who outwit the authorities
- 46:12Speaker 1: and operate in the shadows part of why this case
- 46:15Speaker 1: still captivates people is simple. No one ever got caught,
- 46:20Speaker 1: not the fox eyed man, not the videotape man, not
- 46:23Speaker 1: the people who wrote the letters or planted the poison candy.
- 46:26Speaker 1: And because Japan's Statute of limitations has long since expired,
- 46:29Speaker 1: even if someone does confess tomorrow, there'd be no legal repercussions.
- 46:36Speaker 1: But most of all, what makes a story feel like
- 46:39Speaker 1: such an eerie case is even though they are now
- 46:42Speaker 1: protected by law, still no one has come forward with
- 46:46Speaker 1: any sort of information. They got away with it completely
- 46:51Speaker 1: and are still keeping it all secret and under wraps
- 46:54Speaker 1: to this day. For many, that's the hardest part. The
- 46:58Speaker 1: group got away with it completely, and we still don't
- 47:01Speaker 1: know why they really did it to begin with. So
- 47:05Speaker 1: here we are, decades later, in the case of the
- 47:07Speaker 1: Monster with twenty one faces is still unsolved, no arrests, confessions, nothing.
- 47:13Speaker 1: After all the threats, the fake outs, the poison candy,
- 47:15Speaker 1: some reel, some not, and the massive financial damage to
- 47:19Speaker 1: companies like Glico and Maringa, it's hard not to think
- 47:23Speaker 1: what was the endgame? Was it just money? If so,
- 47:27Speaker 1: it's strange that the group never successfully collected any of
- 47:29Speaker 1: the ransom demands, and they seemed almost casual about walking
- 47:33Speaker 1: away from some of the deals police tried to make.
- 47:36Speaker 1: Was it revenge, possibly, but they targeted multiple companies, not
- 47:40Speaker 1: just one. Was it political, a warning about the power
- 47:43Speaker 1: of corporations or weakness of police maybe? Or was it
- 47:48Speaker 1: something else, like a twisted game. It's hard to say.
- 47:52Speaker 1: The group was theatrical, no doubt. They referenced fictional villains,
- 47:56Speaker 1: they gave dramatic speeches, They played with the media. They
- 47:59Speaker 1: taunted police in ways that felt more like pride than profit.
- 48:03Speaker 1: In the end, it might have been less about money
- 48:05Speaker 1: and more about control, providing they could make powerful people
- 48:09Speaker 1: squirm and get away with it because they wanted to.
- 48:13Speaker 1: A similar case today would probably play out very differently
- 48:15Speaker 1: in the age of the Internet and social media, but
- 48:18Speaker 1: it also might spread faster and farther. And because this
- 48:21Speaker 1: case has never been solved, it remains an example of
- 48:24Speaker 1: what can happen when someone with a plan decides to
- 48:28Speaker 1: test limits of power and patience. In the end, though
- 48:32Speaker 1: the monster with twenty one faces left more than poison
- 48:35Speaker 1: candy and burnt vehicles in their wake, they lift a
- 48:38Speaker 1: permanent scar in Japan's collective memory a reminder that even
- 48:42Speaker 1: in a society built on order and trust, someone can
- 48:44Speaker 1: still slip through the cracks. And whoever they were, whatever
- 48:48Speaker 1: they wanted, they disappeared without a trace. And unless someone
- 48:52Speaker 1: breaks their silence, that's how it's going to stay. And
- 48:57Speaker 1: that's the story of the monster with twenty one faces.
- 49:00Speaker 2: Hmm, dang, dang. You know, I feel like it was
- 49:05Speaker 2: probably a small I don't know, it seemed like it
- 49:10Speaker 2: was so organized and stuff, but it has to have
- 49:13Speaker 2: been like a small group since no one came forward,
- 49:17Speaker 2: or I guess the crime group of sorts makes sense too.
- 49:21Speaker 1: If it's not a small group, it's a highly organized
- 49:24Speaker 1: group with an an inner working that is very very intricate,
- 49:33Speaker 1: like the yakuza. Because you're going to have hierarchies, you're
- 49:36Speaker 1: gonna have tears, you're gonna have rules, and if you
- 49:38Speaker 1: don't follow those rules, it's obvious what's gonna happen to you.
- 49:41Speaker 1: Everyone knows, and it typically gets cut off before it
- 49:45Speaker 1: has a chance of happening because it's such a you know,
- 49:49Speaker 1: intricate entity that operates that way. Yeah, or like you say,
- 49:54Speaker 1: a small group where they can keep their mouths shut.
- 49:57Speaker 2: Yeah, or my only my other thought. But all the
- 50:01Speaker 2: companies weren't necessarily in one group, like I'm some were candy,
- 50:07Speaker 2: someone's processed meat or something, because then like, who was
- 50:10Speaker 2: it a competitor of sorts that's you know, gonna like
- 50:16Speaker 2: profit or become more popular from these companies not. But
- 50:21Speaker 2: then if like, but that would make more sense if
- 50:25Speaker 2: they were like all candy ones, you know.
- 50:27Speaker 1: But if it's all candy, then it would be obvious
- 50:29Speaker 1: to look at a competitor. So what if you threw
- 50:32Speaker 1: other ones in there as red herrings.
- 50:33Speaker 2: Tusche Because I'm just like these people, you know, they
- 50:37Speaker 2: lost so much money, like they're they're letting go of people,
- 50:43Speaker 2: and another candy candy company could like super profit and
- 50:49Speaker 2: like hire these people and just like kill it from that,
- 50:53Speaker 2: Really people might be buying that instead. But then also
- 50:57Speaker 2: maybe they're not because people just stop buying that product
- 50:59Speaker 2: altogether because terrified.
- 51:00Speaker 1: Yeah, people are probably just not buying much of candy
- 51:03Speaker 1: and specifics. I imagine many of the other candy companies
- 51:06Speaker 1: that weren't even targeted by this group were probably suffering and.
- 51:09Speaker 2: Stuff as well. But if you love candy, you know,
- 51:13Speaker 2: could you just alright stop eating candy. You're a candy person.
- 51:17Speaker 1: I do like candy, but I mean, if it's being poisoned, yeah,
- 51:20Speaker 1: I could stop it, but.
- 51:22Speaker 2: So easily you wouldn't. You wouldn't just go to another
- 51:25Speaker 2: brand and like buy their candy.
- 51:27Speaker 1: If if multiple companies were being targeted, I would definitely
- 51:31Speaker 1: stop candy altogether.
- 51:32Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, okay, I'm not that much.
- 51:34Speaker 1: Of a fatty.
- 51:35Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's not calling you a fat.
- 51:38Speaker 1: No, I know you weren't, but it's just like, I'm
- 51:41Speaker 1: not going to just like that heavily rely on candy.
- 51:43Speaker 1: Like honestly, I would even dare say I would stop
- 51:47Speaker 1: buying chocolate.
- 51:48Speaker 2: Milk, beer.
- 51:50Speaker 1: Yes, I can make my own beer.
- 51:53Speaker 2: I could just start making it. Yeah shit, yeah, I
- 51:56Speaker 2: guess just make You can make your own candies, And
- 51:59Speaker 2: I was just thinking that, Yeah, no, if you want.
- 52:01Speaker 1: The sweets, if you got a sweet tooth like I
- 52:03Speaker 1: do have a sweet tooth, I could probably just make
- 52:05Speaker 1: candies at home. I probably like caramels. They're so easy
- 52:09Speaker 1: to make. Probably just start making some caramel like little
- 52:11Speaker 1: caramel candies.
- 52:12Speaker 2: Probably end up eating more candy though.
- 52:14Speaker 1: Probably probably huh wow. And then that'd start my own
- 52:19Speaker 1: handy company selling caramels and.
- 52:21Speaker 2: Oh there you go, and you were the one that
- 52:24Speaker 2: did it.
- 52:25Speaker 1: Dun dunt done.
- 52:25Speaker 2: Problems how it starts?
- 52:27Speaker 1: You can't convict me now, bitch? Is statue of limitation?
- 52:32Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is very interesting, how it just after
- 52:38Speaker 2: this long just nothing? Yeah, so much effort was put
- 52:42Speaker 2: into it too, So you'd be crazy.
- 52:43Speaker 1: You would think there'd be someone who says, you know,
- 52:46Speaker 1: I know what happened, because I mean, after the statute limitations, like,
- 52:50Speaker 1: what can you do? I know what happened. It's an
- 52:53Speaker 1: interesting story to tell. I get my you know, five
- 52:56Speaker 1: minutes of fame, you know, telling the story in a
- 52:58Speaker 1: documentary or whatever.
- 53:00Speaker 2: I don't think you would benefit you in any way though.
- 53:02Speaker 2: It would just make you seem like a complete evil
- 53:05Speaker 2: asshole that everyone was searching for. There would be no benefit.
- 53:08Speaker 1: No, I mean someone who knows what happened.
- 53:12Speaker 2: Oh okay, you know, not the person who did it,
- 53:15Speaker 2: but yeah, okay.
- 53:17Speaker 1: Because I can't imagine someone like that could have kept
- 53:19Speaker 1: their mouth shut. Someone knows something. Someone has to have
- 53:23Speaker 1: known something. Yeah, because even if it's a group of
- 53:26Speaker 1: five just say it's a group of five friends, Okay,
- 53:29Speaker 1: say it's like that, what's that movie Ocean's Eleven or something.
- 53:32Speaker 1: It's a small group of people, right, like five six
- 53:34Speaker 1: people or something or eleven people or whatever. They're not
- 53:36Speaker 1: all going to be able to keep this story to
- 53:38Speaker 1: themselves forever. There's no way someone's going to slip up
- 53:42Speaker 1: deathbed or evidence of something. So someone's going to have
- 53:47Speaker 1: to know. And you'd think that someone would be like, oh, well,
- 53:49Speaker 1: it doesn't matter.
- 53:50Speaker 2: Now, it's just yeah, no kidding.
- 53:53Speaker 1: Unless it was something like the Yakuza. So I'm willing
- 53:56Speaker 1: to bet it's not a small time operation. If it
- 54:01Speaker 1: was a small time operation, they probably would have had
- 54:03Speaker 1: some money transferred somehow. That would have been a thing
- 54:06Speaker 1: for them.
- 54:07Speaker 2: Well yeah, because you would want that, Like, what's the
- 54:10Speaker 2: point of all this shit? Like there was? They were
- 54:12Speaker 2: getting nothing of it? Really, I don't know. Gosh, this
- 54:16Speaker 2: is a weird one.
- 54:17Speaker 1: This is to me, it makes sense to be the
- 54:21Speaker 1: son of a yakuza.
- 54:22Speaker 2: Boss, But so what would it even have been doing
- 54:25Speaker 2: for them?
- 54:27Speaker 1: Well, the reason why I think it makes sense to
- 54:28Speaker 1: be the son of a yakuza boss. You have the boss, right,
- 54:32Speaker 1: the cu the mob guy who tells people what to do.
- 54:36Speaker 1: He's super respected and everything, and you have the son, right.
- 54:40Speaker 1: The son is like, well he's he's that's my daddy.
- 54:44Speaker 1: You gotta do what I say because that's my daddy, right,
- 54:46Speaker 1: And so no one, no one respects you innately, right,
- 54:49Speaker 1: You're just the boss's little brat. So then what do
- 54:53Speaker 1: you do. You got to make a name for yourself
- 54:55Speaker 1: or maybe you know what, even you're just high on
- 54:58Speaker 1: yourself and you don't need money or anything, so you
- 55:00Speaker 1: just want to fuck with people, so you do it
- 55:02Speaker 1: just for the shits and giggles. So either you're trying
- 55:05Speaker 1: to build yourself a reputation.
- 55:06Speaker 2: And he started with the one that he did have
- 55:09Speaker 2: a beef with. Yeah, and then oh man, this is
- 55:12Speaker 2: fun and this is actually getting me kind of a
- 55:14Speaker 2: reputation and like some street cred or whatever you want
- 55:18Speaker 2: to say. And then he continues and.
- 55:20Speaker 1: Then it starts getting deep where you know what police
- 55:23Speaker 1: are actually like offing themselves and shit. And then Daddy
- 55:27Speaker 1: comes along and being like, okay, you're causing shit, like
- 55:31Speaker 1: you need to shut this the fuck down. And then
- 55:35Speaker 1: the little shit disturbing kids like okay, and then never
- 55:38Speaker 1: does it again because he listens to Daddy. I guess
- 55:43Speaker 1: that's my theory. He's a shit disturbing little shit that picture.
- 55:49Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, god he did just like cause.
- 55:52Speaker 1: Hell, which is exactly the type you would expect from
- 55:55Speaker 1: like a mob boss's son, to not give a fuck,
- 55:58Speaker 1: to not understand, and to not need the money.
- 56:03Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes the most sense out
- 56:06Speaker 2: of anything else we've talked about, or it's going on
- 56:09Speaker 2: in my.
- 56:10Speaker 1: Brain, it really does. But anyways, if you guys have theories,
- 56:13Speaker 1: shoot us a message, shoot us an email. We'd love
- 56:15Speaker 1: to hear it. Thank you for being here. You want
- 56:18Speaker 1: to check out all our links and stuff, they're in
- 56:20Speaker 1: the description of this podcast. And until next time, stay wicked.