The Glico-Morinaga incident (or The Monster With 21 Faces) is a notorious police case of extortion and manhunt in Japan, beginning in 1984 and ending in 1985.
The identity and motives of the group behind this mystery puzzled police investigators and panicked Japan’s urban population for years. An unexplained mystery police had to abandon in 2000 without solving the case.
Almost forty years later, nobody knows who was behind the team or the person with the moniker “The Monster with the 21 Faces”
(かい人21面相, Kaijin Nijūichi Mensō).
The main suspect passed away in March 2022. The police never arrested this person, as he presented a solid alibi and consistently denied involvement.
Close to one million police officials were involved in the search for the group that terrorized modern Japan in the most absurd case in the country’s history.
Right from the beginning, the shocking acts of this strange group will puzzle researchers regarding the group’s true intentions. However, as the story unfolds, the bizarre circumstances may uncover a particular purpose.
As we enter this maze with no exit, we encounter one of the most fascinating and bizarre real-life mysteries ever.
We investigate the mystery of the “Monster With 21 Faces”, that begins in 1984 with a weird kidnapping.
Part I: The Kidnapping Of Katsuhisa Ezaki
The nightmare for Katsuhisa Ezaki begins one Sunday afternoon (March 18th, 1984), on his estate in Ashiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.
Katsuhisa Ezaki (42), the son of a candy tycoon, was recently appointed as the new president of Ezaki Glico, assuming control of the company after his father (Richii Ezaki) stepped down.
At around 9 pm, two gunmen entered the Ezaki estate, a land surrounded by a brick wall containing two separate buildings.
The team first invaded Ezaki’s mother building first, tied her up, and demanded the key to thenext building where the Katsuhisa Ezaki’s family was living.
Within a minute, they unlocked the door to Ezaki’s mansion, tied his wife and children at gunpoint, and dragged Katsuhisa Ezaki naked out of his bathroom.
Reports suggest Ezaki’s wife offered money to the intruders when she encountered them, with one of them responding:
“Be quiet. Money is irrelevant”.
The two masked men kidnapped Ezaki after tying up his wife and three children and left the compound, entering their gateway vehicle.
Notes and more details on the kidnapping.
We can safely assume the two kidnappers surveyed the location before their attack and had planned how to proceed to the final detail.
They immobilized threats in the surrounding area, simultaneously gaining access to the keys that unlocked the gate to Katuhisha’s residence.
The two masked men understood Ezaki’s mother kept a second pair of keys to his mansion, as reports suggest they demanded the keys.
The intruders used one pistol and a rifle to threaten Ezaki and his family. However, Ezaki, during the three days of his kidnapping, assumed these weapons were toy guns.
An indication that might direct us to the motives behind the kidnapping and the respect for human life the perpetrators exhibited during the whole ordeal.
The initial police investigation also uncovered two rather important elements that provide better insight regarding the profile of the perpetrators.
i) Katsuhisa Ezaki’s schedule involved taking a bath every day between 9 pm and 10 pm. The fact the kidnappers stormed the building on a Sunday also gives us further clues that the criminals monitored the estate for perhaps two weeks.
There’s no question that trained professionals or criminals with extensive experience in these operations performed these acts using surveillance equipment and profiling Ezaki’s family members.
ii) One kidnapper mentioned the name of the daughter of Ezaki Mariko. “Be quiet, Mariko”, said the man to Ezaki’s 7-year-old daughter when they confronted her on the stairs to the second floor.
This quote perplexed the investigation and raised suspicions of an inside job.
Regardless, when combined with the rest details, the mention of Mariko’s name indicates the team organized the job to the finest detail. The perpetrators knew every essential detail about Ezaki’s family.
The masked men knew Mariko’s name and used it to calm her down when she encountered them.
During the opening stage of the case, police presumed the kidnapping might relate to a grudge against Glico or Ezaki’s family. However, there is little evidence to justify this suspicion, and as events unfolded, this scenario became less popular.
Part II: Captivity And Escape
The group held Ezaki captive for three days in a warehouse in Ibaraki, Osaka, located only a few kilometers from his residence.
About half an hour after the kidnappers escaped, Ezaki’s wife untied herself and notified the police.
Investigators from Osaka and Hyogo prefectures began searching but kept the case silent, asking journalists not to report the incident.
The next day, a Glico executive (unaware of the kidnapping) received a strange phone call with the prerecorded voice of Katsuhisa Ezaki, giving directions to a letter and mentioning an abduction.
The kidnappers had forced Katsuhisa to record this message.
They also threatened Katsuhisa to cooperate by claiming they had also kidnapped his wife.
The directions from Ezaki’s voicemail pointed to a note requesting 1 Billion Yen and 100 pounds of gold as ransom together with directions regarding the delivery. In 1984 rates, the requested amount accounted for $10 million.
Ezaki’s family gathered the requested ransom, but the kidnappers never collected the ransom from the designated location.
However, the following day, (three days after his captivity), Katsuhisa Ezaki escaped the warehouse.
News reported the event, and a press conference followed the same day, but Ezaki did not give any details to reporters.
During the police investigation, though, Ezaki explained his experience in detail. Still, his statement only perplexed further the police investigation.
From the beginning, investigators suspected Katsuhisa Ezaki staged his kidnapping for unbeknownst reasons, as various details didn’t add up.
However, while the kidnapping incident was over, the troubles only started for Ezaki and his confectionery company, Glico.
Notes and more details about the kidnapping
Ezaki declared that a day before his escape, one of his capturers replaced his handcuffs with a rope. It is possible he was abandoned and allowed to escape, and in the end, he managed so.
Ezaki also claimed he overheard the voice of a child. We later learn that the team used a child for a voice recording with instructions regarding payments. In one of the letters, they also mention a small child (4 years old) is part of the criminal organization.
Interestingly, Glico’s stock price dropped rapidly the day after the incident, from 750 to 630 Yen, while only a handful of people knew about the incident.
During the kidnapping, police performed a sweeping investigation inside the company seeking evidence for potential enemies of Glico and Katsuhisa Ezaki. This investigation discovered plenty of labor disputes, which could constitute a motive.
Meanwhile, during the captivity, the Ezaki family obtained the requested ransom and with the police aid, wired the van that was holding 100kg of gold and 1 Billion Yen.
An undercover police officer drove the van to the location the directions pointed to, but nobody collected the ransom. Instead, they received a series of pre-recorded phone calls with the voice of Katsuhisa Ezaki at the locations pointed out by the group, and police decided to call off the operation after a few hours with no new clues or phone calls.
At a later stage of the investigation, police discovered the group possessed equipment intercepting their radio frequencies. The perpetrators could easily avoid police traps and always be one step ahead.
According to all reports, the group never collected ransom.
It seems money was irrelevant to this case, at least not as direct ransom payments.
The story continues with Parts 3 & 4 on this link:
The story contains 11 parts and the conclusion, so publishing in parts would work better for the reader. I will publish the rest parts and provide links as well.
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Parts 3&4 here: https://vocal.media/criminal/glico-morinaga-and-the-mystery-of-the-monster-with-21-faces-parts-3-4