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