Letters with suspected cyanide sent to newspapers, drug makers

January 29, 2019

Tokyo--Threatening letters with white powders suspected to be potassium cyanide were sent to a number of companies in Japan around late last week, police sources have said.

The letters include those delivered to the Tokyo headquarters of major daily publishers Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Newspapers, and offices of drug makers in Tokyo and the western and northern prefectures of Osaka and Hokkaido, respectively, according to the sources.

Letters to the Tokyo-based companies contained messages threatening to produce and distribute fake drugs, they said.

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department and others are investigating the cases on suspicion of attempted extortion.

The police suspect that the threatening letters were sent by a single person or entity, given the similarity of their content, the source said.

Some of the letters were sent under the names of former senior members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, including its guru, Shoko Asahara, who were executed last year for a series of crimes including the 1995 deadly sarin gas attack in Tokyo. Jiji Press