
In April 1985, people in Japan began dying after consuming popular drinks that usually appeared to be dispensed from vending machines.
the death toll across Japan may be as high as 12, making the so-called 'vending machine murders' possibly the deadliest product tampering case in history. Many more people became seriously ill.
The most frequent tampered drink was Oronamin C, an energy drink with added vitamins which sells in the billions every year. The drinks had been laced with paraguat, a herbicide and at the time the vending machines would sometimes give out two drinks as a marketing strategy.
Police suspected that the killer usually left the poison drink in the machines' dispenser slot and they also suspected that some of the deaths might have been suicides of the work of copycat killers.
The case remains unsolved.
the death toll across Japan may be as high as 12, making the so-called 'vending machine murders' possibly the deadliest product tampering case in history. Many more people became seriously ill.
The most frequent tampered drink was Oronamin C, an energy drink with added vitamins which sells in the billions every year. The drinks had been laced with paraguat, a herbicide and at the time the vending machines would sometimes give out two drinks as a marketing strategy.
Police suspected that the killer usually left the poison drink in the machines' dispenser slot and they also suspected that some of the deaths might have been suicides of the work of copycat killers.
The case remains unsolved.