Needles and Metal Objects Found in Halloween Candy Across Germany: Police Investigating in Multiple States
In the days after Halloween, children in several parts of Germany found needles, nails, screws and other metal objects in candy they had collected while trick-or-treating, and police have opened investigations in multiple states, including Thuringia, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate. According to dpa and other German media reports on November 1–2, the items were found in individually wrapped sweets such as chocolate bars, chewy candies and wafer slices; in most of the reported cases, no child was injured.
In Wintzingerode, in Thuringia's Eichsfeld district, children found metal needles while unwrapping their candy. Thuringian police said they believe the sweets were deliberately tampered with in order to cause injury and are investigating on suspicion of attempted dangerous bodily harm. In Filderstadt, Baden-Württemberg, two families found needles in milk-and-hazelnut wafer slices their children had brought home, and in Landshut, Bavaria, parents found sharp metal pieces and screws in chewy candies and chocolate bars.
One case was cleared of third-party involvement: in Appenheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, a nine-year-old boy found two small magnets, about two millimetres across, on a chewy candy. Police said after investigating that the magnets had ended up in the candy by accident, not through deliberate tampering.
Police advised parents to inspect collected candy before children eat it, to keep any suspicious sweets together with their packaging without removing foreign objects — so that traces are preserved — and to contact local police. Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office said the phenomenon of tampered candy has appeared in previous years and that it does not keep separate statistics for such cases.
Source: German police
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：一碗为万圣节「不给糖就捣蛋」活动准备的糖果资料图。公共领域，美国空军照片，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: A bowl of Halloween candy prepared for trick-or-treaters, file photo. Public domain, U.S. Air Force photo, via Wikimedia Commons.
