Finds spread across several German states
Needles, nails and screws have turned up in Halloween sweets in a number of German states since Halloween, Saturday 31 October. In Burg auf Fehmarn in Schleswig-Holstein, an eleven-year-old girl found a thin metal sewing needle in a chocolate bar on the evening of 31 October. In Nahe in the Segeberg district, a screw was found in a chocolate bar. On Monday, 2 November, police in Emmerich reported that children had found a needle several centimetres long in candy collected in the town on 31 October, and a father took the bar to the police station. A 29-year-old woman in Ludwigshafen reported a nail in a chocolate bar she had collected on Halloween evening.
Injuries and suspected harm
Most of the finds caused no injury, but several children were hurt. In Lower Saxony, a nine-year-old girl injured her tongue on a chocolate bar containing a pin just over five centimetres long, which police said had been handed out in Bremervörde by an unknown person. Police could not yet say how serious the injury was. In Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a child suffered slight injuries to the mouth area from a hidden needle. A nine-year-old in Gräfelfing near Munich bit into a chewy sweet with a needle in it, spat it out and was unhurt. Police in several cases are investigating attempted dangerous bodily harm, and in Rauen in Brandenburg a family found a needle in a chocolate bar without anyone being hurt.
Investigators look for a link
Rhineland-Palatinate's interior ministry named Mackenbach, Lünebach, Hermeskeil and Ludwigshafen as places where cases came to light, and said investigators were checking whether the cases were connected. The ministry added that it had no secure findings pointing to a systematic or coordinated approach. Bavarian police took a different view for Lower Franconia, where three chocolate bars and one chewy sweet were tampered with in Obernburg am Main, Ebern, Goldbach and Eibelstadt. They ruled out both a manufacturing fault and a link between the cases and assume deliberate manipulation. In Appenheim in Rhineland-Palatinate, two small magnets found in a chewy sweet turned out to have got into it by accident inside the family home.
- A needle is found in a chocolate bar in Burg auf Fehmarn, Schleswig-Holstein, on Halloween evening.
- Police in Emmerich and Ludwigshafen report finds from the Halloween rounds.
Austria and Europol
Austria's interior minister Gerhard Karner said at a press conference that an investigation group had been set up at the Federal Criminal Police Office in Vienna and was in contact with Europol. Austrian investigators are also in touch with international and German authorities. Karner said Hungary was affected as well.
We will do everything humanly possible to solve this cowardly and insidious crime.
Retailers and advice to parents
Mareike Petersen, managing director of the Handelsverband Nord trade association, said the tampering appears to have happened in private after purchase, so retailers see no concrete extra safety measures to take.
Anyone who intends such tampering will probably, unfortunately, also find a way.
Police in Burg auf Fehmarn collected 15 shopping bags of sweets from parents and children for trace securing, and a spokesman said the bags would be returned once checks were complete. Police warned against blanket suspicion, stating that a find in one place does not mean the culprit lives nearby. Parents are urged to check sweets for damaged or already opened packaging and unusual contents before children eat them, and to call the police if they find anything.