The Menacing Case of the Monster with 21 Faces

this week on buzzfeed unsolved we examine a candy-centric crime wave that struck japan in the 80s the multifaceted story of the monster with 21 faces intrigue never seemed so sweet that's some of your best most professional intro i've ever done put that on a highlight reel for the big guy is this a good story it's a fantastic story i think you're going to enjoy this one lots of twists and turns some tasty twists yeah i think you might have peaked a little early in that intro and then from there it was kind of a precipitous drop that's fine with that being said let's get into it on march 18 1984 kahatsu isa azaki the head of japanese candy manufacturer izaki glico was enjoying an evening bath in his home in osaka suddenly two hooded armed assailants broke into his home and kidnapped the naked ezaki the next day a ransom note demanded izaki's company glico turn over 1 billion yen and 100 kilograms of gold in a specified phone booth the equivalent of 10 million dollars today this guy gets kidnapped while taking a bath he's naked what's your move you're pretty vulnerable i have a couple things that jump to mine okay i don't mean to bring this to this place so quickly yeah but i'm gonna [ __ ] the bath what i would do and this is what i always do when i take a bath always i make sure that i have to pee that way if an assailant jumps into the bathroom i could jump out of the tub and just start spraying him with my piss so you're like scarface basically hey you wanna mess with me you cockroaches and then you just casually stride out of it there's usually a ryan sized window and then i just jump out of it and you're naked and also probably covered in a bit of piss but you get away and that's not abnormal well there you have it folks that's the ryan bergara guide to survival which will be available for pre-order following this episode follow the link in description two days later before any ransom was paid azaki escaped at least one account related his break for freedom in dramatic detail describing how before dawn the bound izaki managed to work his ropes loose break down a door of the isolated warehouse he was kept in and find two railroad employees to help him contact police while still wearing clothes his assailants had given him unfortunately azaki had no idea who his captors were though their plan to ransom azaki had collapsed the people behind the kidnapping didn't let that keep them down for long the perpetrators next demanded 480 thousand dollars threatening to poison glico candies with cyanide if they didn't receive the money adding credibility to their threats the group then reportedly snuck into gleeco headquarters to set some of their property on fire i love the the backup plan here yeah i really respect that i'm wondering if i should be rooting for these people i think i am not because i think it's good to poison the public but okay glad you cleared that up i don't agree with that do not poison the public i do think it's very funny stay with me i'm staying here i have no choice sort of have a little laugh at a big corporate entity like this i knew you had i think you're impenetrable huh what i can do you do have this robin hood complex of taking down corporations i'm not gonna lie i do love seeing a corporation get its uh lunch pail thrown in the mud sometimes despite a growing list of crimes authorities were at a loss to pin responsibility on whoever was targeting glico in the 1980s a case stymieing japanese police like this was a relative rarity to get an idea of how effective the police in japan were in 1983 they solved 97.1 percent of the murder cases and 55.3 percent of deaths compared to the us's 73.5 percent of murders and 17.3 percent of thefts failing to get to the bottom of the glee code case was a black eye on the police's reputation one newspaper yomiri ran an editorial saying quote we do not recall a case in which criminals have made such fools of the police end quote 17.3 percent of deaths solved in the us that means 83 percent then unsolved thefts though to me that just means go steal some [ __ ] go steal it's okay yeah it's going to be at the end of the world they're not going to catch you i guess like if i told you you had an 83 chance of winning a million dollars if you bought this lotto ticket you're going to buy that ticket i'm buying it i'm buying a 100 of the time yeah so i don't know i like your chances there unfortunately for the cops their situation only became more embarrassing perhaps no one was more upset at the police's lack of progress on the case than the criminals themselves on april 8th the press received one of the first of what would be over 100 letters sent by the perpetrators over the next year and a half the letter taunted the police and even tried to help them do their job it began quote to the stupid police are you idiots what are you doing with so many people if you were pros you would catch us because you guys have such a high handicap we're gonna give you some hints end quote the letter proceeded to debunk a few theories such as the kidnapping being an inside job or the owners of the warehouse izaki escaped from being involved the letter writer also gave police more clues informing them that the car they used was gray and naming the grocery store where they bought their food the letter continued quote if you can't catch us after this much info you guys are just thieves of the taxpayers money should we also kidnap the head of the prefectural police end quote i recognize there may be victims in this story collateral victims but the more i hear from this crowd of funny folks the more i think corporate terrorism is very very funny monster with 21 faces biggest fan here i'll get you one of those foam fingers number 22 you're recruiting letters from the group continued to pour in the group showed a knack for getting the public's attention and leveraged the media to ensure their threats and crimes were widely reported critics at the time categorized their actions as gek jo hansei or crime as theater the letters often provided authorities with seemingly random details such as the gate used to enter a factory or the model of typewriter they were riding on none of the clues provided in the notes however went anywhere causing the police to look more and more incompetent almost all the evidence actually left behind at the crime scenes was either stolen or mass-produced meaning tracking the group down remained impossible one clue about the letters themselves however stood out the dialect in which they were written pointed to someone from osaka though this linguistic theory was interesting it did not help authorities get any closer to apprehending the people responsible by june the criminals had begun referring to themselves in letters as the monster with the 21 faces a nod to a 1936 children's story by japanese writer edogawa rampo entitled the mystery man with the 20 faces this is a good time to point out that the monster with 21 faces can also be translated to the mystery man with 21 faces but come on i like to imagine that at any scene they're at they're like let's check tapes from the scene of the crime and there's just like some random bystanders but then there's always just a group of 21 people standing together in a tight group yeah like maybe it's them like you don't know if they're about to commit a crime or bust out some sweet dance moves like the job walkies either it's a flash mob or a corporate terrorist frankly i'm down for either i love flash mob still he's the only one out there at the target in glendale every time i see one i i start clapping yeah the mystery man with the 20 faces is about a thief quote stirring up the newspapers every day end quote and is so adept at disguises that they could be anyone one excerpt from the story seemed particularly descriptive of the group targeting glico quote up until now no matter how many police have been called up they haven't been able to stop this dreadful gang there is one particularly strange feature of this game when they have set their sights on one particular object or artifact without fail they will send a letter of warning announcing their intentions the date place and object of the planned crime even though they're criminals perhaps they don't want to engage in an unfair battle or perhaps they want to show that no matter how many precautions are taken they can still commit the crime with their great skill i'm beginning to wrap my head around why the police are so effective at their job if i'm a child hearing this story i'm thinking if i want to be a policeman i gotta get my [ __ ] together and start training now conversely if i were a child reading that story i'd be like i want to do crimes and that's the tale of two cities right there and that's why we're meant to do battle that's right until the end of time mouse versus horse and as we all know mouse always wins i think mouse actually does spook horse unfortunately mouse in scaring horse could sort of be collateral damage that's true we could just [ __ ] put the gloves on right now we'll save that for the season season finale you're gonna see shane and i just beat the [ __ ] out of each other this whole set is coming down and all of a sudden crashing through the window will fly me and shane's going to look through it like this you had enough and i'm going to go up and go i'm just getting started i can't wait tune in it's gonna be exciting by september 1984 another japanese confectioner mori naga and company began to receive extortion letters threatening unspecified action if the sender did not receive four hundred and ten thousand dollars according to police morinaga never sent the payment on october 8th japanese newspapers received the following letter quote 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 bittersweets that they contain poison we've put 20 boxes in stores from hakata to tokyo the same day packages of cookies and candy were found in grocery stores throughout japan with typewritten labels attached reading quote danger cyanide end quote in total 18 packages were discovered and tested one found at a supermarket only 35 yards away from the home kahatsu-isa azaki was kidnapped from exactly what we're going to say if i already know the answer you know what i already know the answer to this we're going to talk about our favorite candies aren't we oh no wait a second no i thought we're going to talk about something else oh okay okay i was going to say when chipotle announced that they had an e-coli breakout shane and i thought this is the best time to go get chipotle because there's going to be no lines and we went there and it was glorious extra guac they were filling up those chip bags to the [ __ ] rim they knew they had to get rid of them and who were they going to give them to the ghoul boys what were you thinking so i'm thinking more candy centric a terrorist group says what up we're poisoning nerd's ropes i'm going out there and i'm going out there i'm stalking up if i get poisoned let's call that an occupational hazard if i get poisoned eating a nerd's rope and i'm dying on the ground the last thing i'm doing is i'm taking the the nerds rope and just put a little smile on my face if an assailant came from behind me and strangled me with a nerd's rope i'd be sad but i'd be a little less sad while not all the labeled packages were found to contain cyanide at least one had enough to kill someone perhaps because of the warnings no one ever consumed any of the tainted candy the letter warning of the tainted sweets however said that next time there would be 30 boxes and they would not be labeled for the next two weekends it's reported about 40 000 officers staked out grocery stores across the country the stakeouts yielded nothing though thankfully it doesn't appear the group went through with their latest threat investigators did however find surveillance video from october 7th showing a suspect with permed hair glasses and a baseball hat placing something on a shelf where poisoned candy was later found unfortunately the camera was bad the lighting was poor and the security tape hadn't been changed for over a year meaning the quality of the image wasn't great images of this man known as bideo no otoko or video man were released to the public but he was never found it's a creative name really want all out that would be our superhero names video man content boy ghost man [Laughter] well i don't know if they'd call you that sometimes when i get so angry my body just shuts off and that's what happened there and i rebooted you're lucky i have that function yeah truth hurts in addition to this grainy videotape some phone calls attempting to extort money and purportedly placed by the monster were released to the public disturbingly the voices on the tapes were not those of hardened gangsters but of a woman and a child at one point the child is heard giving instructions to leave money quote behind the seat of the bus stop bench end quote while the phone recordings never resulted in any arrests it did provoke the public to reconsider just who the monster could be can you imagine if you had a kid he's like playing with his toys and you're like i'm a little shady it's time to go to bed and then little shaney just looks up and goes give me all your money put it in a bag outside in the backyard or you're a dead man anyone under the age of 23 creepy anyone under 23 is a child to you freaks me out following the suit of the public here are you reconsidering who this monster is now in my brain i'm picturing just a really pristine hip ad agency yeah with like a full staff yeah being like what's progress on the latest uh police taunting letter did we get a child actor for the phone call great imagine you're like a like a new writer in the room you just got the gig and everyone's kind of jazz it's jazz everything's clicking and they go what about this what if we put poison ivy in a ball pit well we're okay so yeah we're thinking of something a little more far-reaching that's not quite the same you know you know i was uncomfortable being number 22 anyway so i'll just i'll just i'll see myself out of here by march of 1985 a year after the first kidnapping 31 food and candy companies had been harassed and japan's finest were still baffled by the case sometimes a company being extorted would actually pull together the money demanded the monster with 21 faces however always refused to pick the money up correctly assuming police would be waiting for them in one instance 21 faces instructed glico representatives to wait for a phone call at a truck stop plainclothes policemen went instead and no call ever came the next letter from 21 faces read quote so you guys thought you could fool us dressed up in your nice businessmen's blue suits acting like salarymen but we could tell immediately those shifty eyes gave you away end quote they said get dunked on dorks must have taken a lot of time to drove to your local party city to pick those suits up but we're a little too smart for that i like a little trash talk too big time i don't know anything about it but i know that out there on the court that's when you use it what kind of trash talk do you do when you're doing competitive uh basket weaving you're like i don't like your shoes you have very dry skin sneak sneakers sneaking around at every turn the monster with 21 faces seemed a step ahead on the flip side according to police the group never received any of the money demanded on august 12 1985 a year and a half after the first kidnapped a man from his bathtub the monster with 21 faces sent their last letter announcing they would stop by this time according to japan's national police agency authorities had received over 28 000 tips and had used over 130 000 police officers with a stack of letters a laundry list of crimes and a humiliated police agency it's time to look at the theories surrounding who could have been the monster with 21 faces our first theory is that the monster with 21 faces was an inside job and that kahatsu-isa izaki was in on it from the start this theory was popular at the beginning of the crime wave and seems to derive mainly from people's disbelief that azaki was able to escape his kidnappers there's never been any actual evidence to back this theory up though some might find it suspicious that maury naga's candy was poisoned while glicose was only threatened to be casting doubt on this theory is the fact that even with no cyanide being discovered in their products glico's business was greatly affected by the whole ordeal at one point after the monster with 21 faces publicly threatened to poison glico candy all of glico products were pulled from shelves forcing the company to shut down production temporarily and lay off two-thirds of their part-time employees i do think it's a little much to think that this guy was in on it just because he managed to escape i think the monster with 21 faces aren't exactly violent criminals per se so when they actually have a kidnapped person they were like [ __ ] what do we actually do they tied them up with like an extension cord or something yeah glico being in on it doesn't make any sense to me because why would they start with their own companies and start with the other and set their own production facility on fire i guess to fuzz the radar a bit but that's a lot of fuzz that's a lot of fuzz too much fuzz you ever have a peach that had too much fuzz on it no it's disgusting i've only had peaches that don't have enough fuzz i love the photos i don't like it it massages my tongue in a not pleasurable way i love it our second theory is that the monster with 21 faces was someone seeking revenge on japan's food companies almost 30 years before 21 faces sent their first letter in mid-1955 a stabilizing agent in morinaga produced dry milk accidentally contained the poison arsenic by june 1956 over 12 000 infants had been injured and 138 had died morinaga reached a settlement with the families of the affected infants but a 1969 report showed that the survivors continued to suffer related ailments by the time the monster with 21 faces began its campaign the victims of the dry milk incident would have been almost 30 and perhaps ready to seek revenge on the company that made their early years so difficult this theory however doesn't account for why 21 faces targeted the entire industry instead of just mori naga you [ __ ] milk up somehow yeah you just take a bucket of milk and you leave it in the sun for a few days but uh boy i don't know how to get arsenic out of that i've i had gotten poisoned by company as a child and i was now a man i would want revenge as well too sure i'm gonna write some funny letters and i'm gonna make some funny calls and watch the stock drop i like this one i'm not gonna lie i like the idea that they're just out there blasting at any corporate target like you said they seem like agents of chaos so trying to figure out some motivation here almost feels less exciting to me our final and best theory is that a man named manabu miyazaki was at the very least somehow involved in november 1984 after the cyanide poisoned confections showed the monster with 21 faces meant business 100 million yen were set to be turned over to the criminals in kyoto police surveilling the drop-off spotted a suspicious quote box-eyed man and gave chase the suspect eluded capture but police did manage to find the stolen car he had been driving complete with a police scanner inside oxide man what kind of kid's book [ __ ] is this i don't know i mean these police obviously aren't a crack squad of personnel here no hilarious to me by the way in the one instance that they had to possibly catch this criminal they lost in a foot race they really blew it yeah that's rough humiliating i almost wish they did it on purpose like let's recruit someone real fast get them there so the cops see them and then we'll have no problem outrunning them just to really make them feel bad yeah just uh they hire some parkour specialists yeah and he's just bouncing off the walls running circles in january authorities released a sketch of the fox eyed man leading to his identification as manabu miyazaki the sketch was apparently so true to life that even miyazaki's own mother believed it was him that mother by the way happened to be from osaka the son of a yakuza boss miyazaki was a known criminal who had organized anti-police actions in college and had already been arrested several times while it appeared that police had finally made a face-saving break in the case charges were never brought against miyazaki miyazaki apparently had a rock-solid alibi and no hard evidence was ever turned up to tie him back to the case miyazaki went on to write a memoir detailing his life of crime the book was released shortly after the statute of limitations for the man with 21 faces case expired and the cover was the sketch police released while trying to track miyazaki down though he confessed to other crimes in the book miyazaki never mentioned any involvement in the 21 faces spree if miyazaki was on his way to pick up the extorted 100 million yen when police gave chase he did eventually get his money the book went on to earn the known criminal over 100 million yen that's got to be humiliating for the police if this guy is in fact the monster with 21 faces and he's not even outright admitting it he out thwarted you or he outsmarted you at every turn and then he profited off of it i love it i feel like there's very much uh probably a desire for a reputation you'd want to boast that you did something so you might as well wait till after the statute of limitations and you know hint that it was you but at that point why not just say yeah it was me i don't know just to not even give them the satisfaction because when you do find out it was somebody you do have closure despite the fact that you got done that's true like we cover a lot of cases and i haven't solved any of them obviously i'm gonna have to bear that weight for the rest of my life most people when they die friendly moments with family and friends and lovers flash through their brain for me all question marks i'm going to be thinking who the [ __ ] was the summertime man your headstone's just going to say blew it it will remain dot dot dot and that's it a year after katsuisa izaki was first kidnapped the japanese ministry of agriculture claimed sweets consumption across the country was down 10 percent both izaki glico and morinaga suffered massive losses in sales in morinaga's case perhaps even 60 percent in the end the monster with 21 faces got away with it even with the statute of limitations expired no one has come forward to admit to the crime unless the real face behind these crimes decides to someday reveal itself the identities of the monster with 21 faces remains unsolved did anyone get poisoned from this no one got poisoned but company's revenue got hurt so i guess you could say people lost their jobs then these men are my heroes i salute them i endorse what they have done let me go on record as being a super fan of the monster with 21 faces what is this a [ __ ] tryout i know this is the last season but to see you so candidly and kind of grossly audition for your next gig i'm a little offended do it on your own time and you know what buzzfeed at large is not a fan of the monster with 21. and i will say why shane midday personally endorse them and i hope they give me a call and i can say that i ryan bergara do not endorse them but nice work nice work don't poison pete don't poison [Music] people you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 6,868,361

Keywords: buzzfeed, buzzfeed unsolved, buzzfeedunsolved, creepy, crime scenes, investigative, monster with 21 faces, monster with 21 faces cracked, scary, true crime, unsolved, unsolved case, unsolved cases, unsolved crime, unsolved network

Id: mqxHzWJlqps

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/PlayOnPlayer]

Uhh they kinda skipped a very major part in this story, namely that the police superintendent in charge of the investigation committed suicide via self-immolation after being unable to catch them.

Their final letter specifically notes that "Yamamoto died like a man," and in turn they would stop their actions.

[u/damnyoutuesday]

This was the best true crime episode in a while. Really good from start to finish. A really interesting case .And Ryan actually seemed to have done the research on this one, instead of just being handed the case file

[u/Rodimus-Primus]

This one feels like it's the first one to be properly unsolved we've had in a little while, like most have just been interesting/weird crime stuff that's happened the past few episodes.

[u/kiwi_cloudpuff]

Ahh this is definitely one of those episodes where it’s easy to sympathize with the criminals

[u/alicat2308]

I liked this one a lot. Great case, no major harm done, cops looked silly, corporations were inconvenienced, I spent like hours watching because I kept rewinding the funny parts. Watching TMS now.

Edit: I just read in the comments about the police superintendent. Changes my opinion on the amount of harm done. I'm not sure its a consequence that could have been foreseen, however.

[u/bsidetracked]

I knew Shane would love the 21 faces when Ryan read the letter. Have to admit they made me laugh with it.

I found the theory about the group bring the grown up survivors of the arsenic poisoning to be really interesting and would also love a whole episode on the arsenic accidentally got into the powdered milk.

[u/Mannersmakethman2]

If my calculations are correct, this is Shane’s 100th case/episode

[u/Mrquinlan196]

Am I crazy to think that the MW21F was maybe a Police officer or Group of police officers? They evaded the Police at every turn and seemed to have inside info. Maybe a Cop or more were involved and all the Police taunting was a Red Herring.

[u/nerd_named_Lionheart]

What if you add theory 1 & 3 together?

Inside job to cover up something damaging to the company's reputation (production issues or something) so they hired a 'fixer', Manabu Miyazaki, who helped make them victims in the public eye so their setback would be more "acceptable"..

And with the saboteur hitting other companies after, helps to set the competition back, gives them a shot to rebuild easier.