Man held over poisoned food in Japan
Print Edition
Japanese police yesterday arrested a factory worker for allegedly poisoning frozen food with pesticides, in a case that left more than 2,800 people ill across the nation, news reports said.
Gunma Police Department arrested the 49-year-old man, who was identified as Toshiki Abe, a member of staff at a frozen food factory in Gunma, north of Tokyo, which is run by a subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings, Japan’s largest seafood firm, according to public broadcaster NHK and other local media.
The suspect denied the allegations, while the motive behind the alleged crime was still unknown, NHK reported.
Local police officials declined to comment.
At least 2,843 people nationwide have complained of illness — most of them displaying mild symptoms including vomiting, cramps and diarrhoea — after eating the suspect products, according to the health and welfare ministry.
The subsidiary, called Aqlifoods, received the first of a series of complaints in November, with a customer saying its frozen pizza smelled like machine oil.
But the firm did not announce a product recall until December 29, after tests found traces of a chemical called malathion, which is used as a pesticide and to treat head lice.
Investigators were interviewing workers assigned to the packaging room, suspecting that the toxin might have been deliberately added during production at the factory, local press said.
Food safety standards are generally high in Japan, and companies that fall short of public expectations often find the damage to their reputations lasts for years.
Aqlifoods has recalled 6.4 million potentially tainted products, with 5.5 million packages recovered by Tuesday. None of the products had been shipped overseas, the company said.
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