Glico Morinaga And The Mystery of the “Monster With 21 Faces” (Parts 5-8)

We examined in the first previous part the kidnapping of Katsuhisa Ezaki and the beginning of the reign of terror by the Monster with 21 Faces.

The story continues here:

Part 5: Morinaga And The Escalation Of Threats

Four months after the Ezaki Glico events, the Monster with 21 Faces reappeared, this time targeting Glico’s competitor, Morinaga.

In a letter addressed to the “Moms of the Nation”, the group announced a despicable act of placing poisoned Morinaga candy on store shelves, generating mass panic in Japan’s society.

To moms throughout Japan:

In Autumn, when appetites are strong, sweets are really delicious. When you think sweets — no matter what you say — it’s Morinaga.

We’ve added some special flavor. The flavor of potassium cyanide is a little bitter. It won’t cause tooth decay, so buy the sweets for your kids.

We’ve attached a notice on these bitter sweets that contain poison.

We’ve put twenty boxes in stores from Hakata to Tokyo

Police raised nationwide alarm and began searching selves in shops in all cities throughout the country.

The search discovered 20 boxes tainted with poisonous substances, with each containing a warning sign placed on its top side and the mention:

Danger: Contains poison. You’ll die if you eat this. The monster with 21 faces

More extortion letters reached Morinaga with warnings, implying the mysterious group could begin poisoning products without warning labels attached.

Morinaga suffered a similar fate to Glico, as it had to recall products and reduce production, with demand evaporating. Police were dispatched again to supermarkets across the nation, and emptied shelves, this time of Morinaga products.

The Japanese society was shocked.

A small group of thugs was threatening the health and lives of millions.

Japan was considered secure with limited criminal activities that never faced corporate kidnappings or mass poisoning hysteria until that point.

The Monster with 21 Faces did not stop with Morinaga but proceeded with sending extortion letters to more candy and food-related companies.

The criminals sent a new letter to House Food Corporation in November 1984, again extorting a food company:

We are the culprits involved in the Glico and Morinaga incidents. If you do not want to become another Glico and Morinaga, put out the cash. If you do not respond, we will poison your products.

Part 6: The Chase

Months later, police spotted the Fox-Eyed man again, this time in Shiga prefecture.

On November 14th, 1984, during yet another cash delivery following the extortion letter to House Food, agents located the fox-eyed man in the surrounding area.

He was wearing a golf cap and glasses, standing at a phone booth, and immediately left upon noticing he caught the attention of two agents who were making a move toward him.

One officer on the scene was confident this was the fox-eyed man and tried to take pictures of him with no success. This was also one of the agents that spotted the fox-eyed man during the previous sighting in the Kyoto train station.

However, when the agents radioed the headquarters for instructions, they were ordered not to chase the man, as the aim was to wait and confront anyone trying to reach the money.

(Note: The headquarters decision seems bizarre since going by the book didn’t work the last time.)

The suspect fled the scene, and agents also noticed a suspicious Nissan Skyliner speeding away from the area. The fox-eyed man was invisible again.

An hour later, during the night, a Shiga officer spotted a parked station wagon, with its headlights off and the engine running.

(Note: Shiga police were not part of the operation)

As he approached the car with his flashlight, he saw the face of the driver, which was again the fox-eyed man wearing the same golf cap and headphones with a wireless receiver.

The sudden appearance of the police officer caught the fox-eyed man off-guard, and he instantly sped away. The police officer tried to pursue him, but the station wagon had already vanished.

Hours later, police found the station wagon abandoned near a train station. The vehicle was stolen from a nearby city the same day, and when officers searched it, they discovered radio equipment listening to police frequencies.

The authorities were worried the criminals possessed the means to intercept their radio communications since they were always ahead of them, and the last finding validated their suspicions.

The fox-eyed man had once again fled.

Japanese police had no trace of the identity or the motives behind the Monster with 21 Faces, despite the nationwide manhunt.

Fujiya Foods was one of the companies the group targeted next, among other food companies.

In January 1985, police released the sketch of the fox-eyed man to the public and directed their investigation to a single man, Manabu Miyazaki.

Part 7: The Main Suspect: Manabu Miyazaki

The police considered a local Yakuza boss Manabu Miyazaki as the prime suspect.

Miyazaki was suspected because of the facial resemblance to a sketch of a suspect the police had drawn and his earlier anarchist and anti-police activity.

The son of a Yakuza boss, and a Yakuza boss himself, Miyazaki had issues with Glico before, so he was considered a perfect match for the police.

Miyazaki had informed the police regarding Gligo’s prohibited waste disposal practices in 1977 and 1978.

However, he denied involvement with the Glico-Morinaga case and provided a convincing alibi on his whereabouts for the days and time the police encountered the suspect. He proved he was in Kyoto during both sightings of the fox-eyed man.

Police never pressed any charges on Manabu Miyazaki for this case.

Notes:

Miyazaki passed away just a few months ago (March 2022).

He categorically denied any involvement with the particular case all this time.

Miyazaki published his autobiography in 1995 and translated it into English in 2015, but the mystery of the “Monster with 21 Faces” marked him forever, no matter his fascinating life as a Yakuza boss.

The lead illustration of his biography in 1995 was the same police sketch of the fox-eyed man, which was (probably) a clever marketing stunt to increase sales rather than an admission of guilt.

During interviews and press conferences regarding the publication of his biography, he consistently refuted claims he was the fox-eyed man.

Upon examining the pictures closer, we can share the remark of Manabu’s mother that her son was “more beautiful than the man depicted in the police sketch”.

Manabu was intelligent and cultivated. He could perform such an ordeal all by himself, but there’s nothing else but the police sketch linking him to the case.

This case could make the real culprit notorious as a criminal mastermind. Still, anyone who admitted participation in such large-scale criminal activities would be rather foolish, as Miyazaki once said.

While Manabu Miyazaki was not the culprit, he still had the motive to investigate and the means to find out who the real Monster With The 21 Faces was.

Part 8: The Reign Of Terror Ends

By August 1985, the criminal group was terrorizing food companies for 17 months, and the police had discovered no new leads.

Officers questioned thousands of suspects but to no avail. Nobody could offer reliable information on the case, either.

The media and the public were condemning the inefficiency of the police at every opportunity.

On August 7th, 1985, filled with shame and despair from the unsuccessful attempts to crack the case, police superintendent of Shiga prefecture Shoji Yamamoto (59) committed suicide by setting himself on fire using kerosine at his residence backyard, hours after he was relieved from his post.

This tragic event was a situation the Monster With 21 Faces didn’t expect, and five days later, the group released a new letter announcing it was seizing its operations.

Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture Police died.

How stupid of him!

We’ve got no friends or secret hiding place in Shiga. It’s Yoshino or Shikata who should have died. What have they been doing for as long as one year and five months?

Don’t let bad guys like us get away with it. There are many more fools who want to copy us.

No-career Yamamoto died like a man. So we decided to give our condolence. We decided to forget about torturing food-making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food-making companies, it’s not us but someone copying us.

We are bad guys.

That means we’ve got more to do other than bullying companies.

It’s fun to lead a bad man’s life.

Monster with 21 Faces.

This letter was the last time we heard from the Monster with 21 Faces.

Shoji Yamamoto’s self-immolation was a sacrifice that forced the Monster with 21 Faces to cease its reign of terror.

Copycat criminal gangs proceeded with less sophisticated extortion attempts, extorting food companies for years. The Japanese police solved almost all these cases.

To Be continued (check comments for the link of the next, and final part)

Previous Parts:

Originally published on Medium (full story), on my "Ex Cathedra" profile.

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