Austrian police have arrested a suspect in the case of baby food jars contaminated with rat poison. HiPP says it received a blackmail email
Austrian police said on Saturday they had arrested a 39-year-old suspect in connection with a case in which rat poison was placed in jars of baby food in an alleged blackmail attempt on the German manufacturer, according to Reuters.
Five “tampered” jars of the same range of baby food, made by German brand HiPP, were safely recovered from Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia last month before they were consumed, German authorities said at the time. A sixth jar, believed to be in Austria, has not yet been found.
“Today we managed to arrest a suspect, a 39-year-old man,” said a police spokesman in the eastern Austrian state of Burgenland, where one of the contaminated jars was discovered. The official declined to provide further details, citing that they could affect the investigation.
Earlier, the Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung reported that the suspect was arrested in the state of Salzburg, located on the border with Germany.
The HiPP company did not provide details about the nature of the alleged blackmail. However, the Austrian publication Die Presse reported, shortly after the case appeared, that the company received an email in March demanding two million euros within six days. According to the cited source, the company would not have noticed the message until two weeks after the deadline. HiPP representatives later explained that the email had been sent to a rarely verified group address.
HiPP products. Photo source: Dreamstime.com
