Needles in Halloween Sweets: Police Investigate in Thuringia
Children in Leinefelde-Worbis found metal needles in their Halloween sweets. Police believe the sweets were deliberately tampered with and are investigating on suspicion of attempted grievous bodily harm.
Police Investigate Tampered Halloween Sweets
Unknown individuals have hidden metal needles in Halloween sweets and distributed them to children. As DER SPIEGEL (Justice & Crime) reports, children in Leinefelde-Worbis discovered the needles in their collected confectionery. Police believe the sweets were deliberately tampered with. No injuries have been reported so far.
The children were ringing doorbells at numerous houses in the Wintzingerode district on Saturday evening. This has made it impossible so far to determine exactly which address the affected sweets came from. Police opened an investigation and criminal proceedings on suspicion of attempted grievous bodily harm. Parents in the region were urged to thoroughly check their children's Halloween haul before consumption.
The incident occurred in the town of Leinefelde-Worbis in Eichsfeld district in Thuringia. A similar incident was also reported from Rhineland-Palatinate: in the village of Appenheim in Mainz-Bingen district, a boy discovered two tiny magnets attached to a chewing sweet. In this case too, police were called.
Such incidents have been repeatedly documented in the United States, where so-called trick or treating has a long tradition — reports of razor blades in apples or toxic substances in sweets circulate regularly there. In Germany, such cases remain considerably rarer, but they attract considerable attention.