A 39-year-old man has been arrested in Austria as the alleged perpetrator of extortion against the German baby food manufacturer HiPP, which has kept Central Europe on edge for several weeks, local media reported on Saturday.
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According to the public broadcaster ORF, the suspect appears to be a “lone wolf,” who allegedly placed rat poison in six jars of baby food placed in three supermarkets in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
The newspapers Kronenzeitung and Heute report that the man was arrested in the Austrian city of Salzburg, near the border with Germany, where the Hipp company headquarters is located.
The detainee sent an email threatening to poison the products
The suspect was reportedly found through traces left when sending emails and thanks to security cameras in the supermarkets where he left the tampered jars.
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The company received an email on March 27 demanding payment of two million euros by April 1 to prevent the circulation of the tampered jars. However, the threat was not read by the company until several days after the deadline had passed, and the six containers were placed in the supermarkets.
Five of them were found by local authorities, while the sixth remains missing. Health authorities detected 15 micrograms of rat poison in the tampered jar found in the state of Burgenland, about 60 kilometers south of Vienna.
The supermarket chains affected by the extortion, as well as other stores as a precaution, decided to remove all Hipp brand products from their shelves.
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