On a cold evening in 1984, the lights of Osaka’s shopping streets glowed as usual—until a quiet, unprecedented threat began to seep into everyday life. A candy company executive vanished. A family found itself under siege. Supermarket shelves became potential crime scenes. And in the shadows, an unseen group signed its messages with a name that sounded like a children’s story—The Monster With 21 Faces.
Chapter 1: The Abduction That Opened the Door (1984)
The case that would grip Japan began on March 18, 1984, in the Kansai region. That night, the president of Glico, a major confectionery company, was abducted from his home in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture. The kidnapping was not a rumor or a vague threat—it was direct, physical, and terrifyingly bold.
Days later, he escaped. The details of the escape were reported at the time, but many operational specifics remained carefully handled by authorities. What mattered most was the shift it signaled: a crime that targeted not only a person, but a symbol—an entire brand, and by extension, public trust.
With the executive’s return, the danger did not recede. It evolved. Extortion demands followed, and the perpetrators began a sustained campaign against Glico and later other food companies, turning ordinary consumer goods into instruments of fear.
Chapter 2: Letters, Threats, and a New Kind of Terror
What made the Monster With 21 Faces case feel cinematic—while remaining painfully real—was the way it unfolded through communication. The group sent taunting letters to companies and the police, presenting itself as organized, confident, and untouchable. The name “Monster With 21 Faces” was borrowed from the famous Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Ranpo, a cultural reference that made the threats feel staged, scripted, and deliberately theatrical.
The group’s most alarming tactic was product tampering threats: they claimed to have laced food—especially sweets—with poison. In several incidents, products were found with warning labels placed by the criminals themselves, stating they contained poison. This detail mattered: it suggested a goal beyond mass harm. Many observers, including later commentators, interpreted it as coercion through fear—maximizing panic and economic damage while maintaining control over outcomes. That interpretation is widely discussed, but it remains an assessment rather than a proven motive.
The impact was immediate and measurable. Companies pulled products from shelves. Consumers hesitated over items that had once been casual purchases. The case became a national anxiety, with businesses, police, and the public caught in a tense triangle of suspicion and vulnerability.
- Primary targets: Glico initially, then other major food companies including Morinaga.
- Method: Extortion demands backed by threats, plus public-facing warnings about poisoned products.
- Effect: Massive recalls, financial losses, and a pervasive sense that no one could guarantee safety in everyday routines.
Chapter 3: The Man on the Video and the Case That Wouldn’t Close
As the investigation intensified, the public learned of an eerie figure who entered the story through surveillance and witness accounts: the so-called “Fox-Eyed Man,” a suspect captured in images connected to the case. His identity was never confirmed publicly in a way that led to an arrest, but his presence became one of the case’s enduring symbols—proof that the criminals were not merely voices on paper.
The police response was immense, and yet the group continued to slip through nets that seemed tightly drawn. The case exposed structural challenges: coordinating across jurisdictions, handling an adversary who communicated strategically, and protecting the public without amplifying panic. Over time, the taunting letters continued, the demands shifted, and the investigation consumed resources—while the perpetrators remained faceless in the most literal sense.
In 1985, a devastating moment struck the investigation: a senior police official involved in the case died by suicide by self-immolation. This event is widely reported and is often cited as a measure of the intense pressure surrounding the failures to apprehend the perpetrators. It did not solve the mystery—it deepened it, adding a tragic human cost on the law enforcement side of the story.
Ultimately, no one was conclusively identified and prosecuted as the Monster With 21 Faces. The statute of limitations for the relevant crimes later expired, sealing the case in a legal sense while leaving it unresolved in the public imagination.
Decades later, Japan’s Monster With 21 Faces remains more than an unsolved case—it is a lesson in how fear can be engineered without constant violence, and how modern society’s supply chains can be turned into leverage. The letters stopped, the shelves refilled, and daily life resumed. Yet the question lingers in the quiet spaces of memory: who knew how to pull so many strings—and vanish?
