From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Dear dumb ladies, officers don't tell a lot. All crimes begin with a lie, As we say in Japan. Don't you know that? Why don't you keep it to yourself? You seem to be at a loss, so why not let us help you. We'll give you a clue. We entered the factory by the front gate. The typewriter re used is panwriter. The plastic container we used was a piece of street garbage, signed Monster with twenty one faces. Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. What you just heard was an excerpt from the subject of today's episode, as read by our very own Matt Frederick. That's me, Hello, welcome to the show. Hey Matt, thanks for coming. Uh and my name is Ben. Of course, as always we are here with with no uh fox eyes brown? About that? No, the fox eyed brown. He's gesturely as and what I assumed to be the common sign of the fox side. Oh and the fox call and the fox call. We're not going to ask you to do alright, alright, that was too far. No there, Oh my god, he did it. It's true. Yeah, as an armchair Fox expert, Yeah or Fox putologists the word I just made up. Uh, so I can verify that if that, if that were actually a Fox and where I actually Fox expert. So here is our audio follow up to an earlier video that we created about unsolved crimes. Previously, we covered the famous Tom m or tomm shut case, the case of the Summrton Man. Just I just want to say I I've always heard it as tom un with an end should, but then upon our research, we realized, no, it's it's always been tom m should always That's what that was what was written on the note. Yeah, and uh, it's it's interesting because you know, it might this is something that listeners can can help us with, perhaps because as you know, some languages that are non Romance or non Latin languages have some difficulty with translation, right, which is why for a long time, Uh, they were probably if you're old enough, you may remember in your lifetime some names of cities have changed, like Bombay became Mumbai, uh, picking Beijing, things like that. So this might be a case of Fitzgerald the author who did the translation of the rubiat which we refer this may be a case of him uh using maybe an outdated nomenclature or something like that. Neither you uh, where I speak FARSI is that? No? I mean it, I do not speak Okay, Well, the Somerton case was only one of the cases we mentioned in the video. We also mentioned, uh, some bizarre spree killings in Belgium, some feet that were shown up all over the place in the northwest north Pacific, northwest. Yeah, and we also mentioned one other case, one of the most famous unsolved cases in Japanese criminal history, and that is what is known as the Monster with twenty one faces met. What you just read at the top of the show was a quote from an actual letter sent to some police departments. Uh, I have kind of taunting at very much taunting the police departments. Yeah, as things were kicking into high gears. So let's go ahead and just start at the beginning. What what happened? How did this case begin? Well, it all begins with this candy company called Glico in Japan. Uh. And like all other companies, Glico has a CEO, so their their CEO's name was Katsuhisa Eazaki, and these two armed masked men broke into Katsuhisa's mother's house and stole a key uh from for his house, Okay, from his mom. And this was when this happened. Uh. They they did some some pretty heinous things. They bound some people up right, They tied up his wife and uh one of his children, and cut the telephone cords. They raided the bathroom where they found the CEO and his other two kids hiding. That's right. And then they abduct abducted the CEO and they held him hostage at a warehouse. Uh. They issue a ransom as wealth one billion yen and one rams of gold bars. Uh. That's got to be a tense situation if you're the CEO of the company and you wonder, well, one billion yen one of gold, what's going to happen to me? What's the board can't do? If the board gonna cut their losses and be like, yeah, sorry, we can find another ceo. Uh. Luckily he did not have to address that, uh frightening question. Uh. And and you know he didn't have to get to the ultimate answer because he managed to escape the warehouse three days later. However, he was not able to identify any of his abductors. And this was far from over. Yeah, so these guys had masks on. I'm assuming they wore them the whole time. So I mean, when once you're out and you're trying to figure out who these people are, if you don't have clear motive already beforehand, then how do you know who these guys are? That's that is a scary, scary situation. So a few weeks later, a couple other things happen that some vehicles that are in the parking lot at Glico are set on fire. Then there is a container of hydrochloric acid um and and a letter that accompanied right yeah, and a threatening letter written to Glico itself. They were found in Ibaraki. And let me take a moment here to point out that my Japanese is going to be terrible. My pronunciations, uh and thank you to everybody in the Summrson case. There are people who wrote in and said, hey, guys, your your pronunciation of the Australian stuff not that bad. Yeah we did, Okay, Well we have we have some really supportive audience C plus B maybe so this uh so the Japanese is not going to be spot on here. But the warehouse where this guy was originally held hostage, that's where this That's the same town that this letter came to. And this was the first and a string of letters from a person or a group of people dubbing itself the Monster with one Faces. Interesting side note here, they did make up that name. No, No, it's based off of a Japanese detective series, I believe, which is fictional. Uh And but it's pretty well known in Japan. It's named after the villain in one of those detective in that detective series. Uh. These letters claim that Glico candies were laced with potassium cyanide soda, meaning that it would quite possibly kill people who ate it. Yeah, and if not kill them, make them very very very ill. And you can't have that if you're a large company like that. That this is just not this is not a good idea to allow this product to go out. So Glico, as you might assume, they pulled, they pulled their their stuff off the shelves, but they didn't just pull the possibly contaminated once. They just pulled everything. They pulled a lot of stuff and they were also, um, they were doing this based entirely on the threat. Yes, there was not evidence found at that time, but this was a massive loss for the company, twenty one million dollar loss. And keep in mind this is in the eighties. Uh. And they had the layoff almost five hundred employees because of this expense. And that's a twenty one million dollar US right yeah, yeah, yeah, not yet and uh, after months of tormenting Glico, the Monster it's twenty one faces, uh forgives them, says we forgive Glico and that was their final letter. But they weren't done yet. But it's crazy. I guess they they caused enough damage. I'm trying to put my head in the mind of these the Monster twenty one faces. Just I guess they saw that the company had been I defeated in a way, at least according to their standards, so they're like, you know what, it's okay, guys were cool. So they moved on, and they they turned their sights on a couple other companies who produced food, um oh Man Marudai, ham House Foods Corporation and Fujia. Right yeah, and this this was straight up extortion pretty much, right. Uh. And at the time in Japan. It's important to note that this was a campaign of over terror. You know, people were some for the first time, were terrified about the possibility of crime because Japan, in comparison to a lot of other countries, is a very safe place. You know, this is this is not the place where you would think you would accidentally die because you ate you bought some pockey, which is, by the way, my my favorite, my favorite thing that Glico makes. You know what I'm talking about, the little yeah yeah, don't get the strawberry. I'm not I'm not a fan of strawberry, and I have no illusions about the nutritional value or lack thereof. Man that chocolate saw stuff is on point anyway. So they told Nade that they would stop harassing this company if one of their employees gave him ransom money fifty million years, specifically on a train. So the police forces have an investigator disguise himself as an employee, and while he's disguisedes an employee, they don't see exactly the place where they're instructed to hand off the money because they're supposed to like throw it from a train kind of. But they do see a guy later becomes the prime suspect as a representative of the monster. Twenty one faces and that is the so called fox eyed Man, which goes back to your nickname today. No, the man was well built, he had short hair and it was permed, and he was and he was described as having eyes like those of a fox. So after this police officer investigator dress his employee drops the ransom, he and this other guy try to follow the fox eyed Man, but they lose him, and then they get an other close chance to catch him again, but he evades him again. He's pretty good at it. It feels so cinematic to me. It feels like this is a script that was written. But no, No, ladies and gentlemen, this happened. Yeah. And after the after this event and during these close calls, the monster is mailing more harassing letters towards the police. And a year later, after a year of unsuccessfully investigating this finding no leads, catching no criminals, the police superintendent, a fellow named Yamamoto, commits suicide because of this case, and he does it by setting himself on fire, allegedly because he's ashamed of his failure to capture the fox eyde man. So five days after the death, little less than a week, the Monster of twenty one Faces sends a final letter to the media, Matt, do you want to do the honors? Sure? Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture police died. How stupid of him. We've got no friends or secret hiding place, and she got it's Yoshino or Shikata who should have died? What have they been doing for as long as one year? In five months? Don't let bad guys like us get away with it. There are many more fools who want to copy us. No career. Yamamoto died like a man, so we decided to give our condolence. We decided to forget about torturing food making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food making companies, it's not us, but someone copying us. We are bad guys. That means we've got more to do other than bullying companies. It's fun to lead a bad man's life. Monster with twenty one faces And with that, the monster at twenty one faces did not surface again, or at least hasn't hasn't been seen to surface. So this crime, this series of creams, remains unsolved seventeen months from the initial kidnapping to the last known letter which you heard part of there, and this was a historical and historical hinge. You know, this turn the public perception of a crime free and safe Japan, and it leaves us with a lot of questions. One one thing that people would say is that the suspects would most likely be yakuza, you know, the organized crime rings of Japan. It certainly seems like there was a lot of organization going on, coordinating where to be and when and knowing information about their victims. And in j statute of limitations ran out for the kidnapping an assault, and then in two thousand the limitations for the poisoned food products also expired. So what's interesting is the fox sybe man as well as some other unidentified guy in a hat we're seeing different times during the seventeen months. The guy in the hat was actually seen putting food onto a shelf, uh so actually participating in the in the poison right. So after the after the release of the identicate, you know, to try to find a perpetrator in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police believed the culprit was a guy named Manabu Miyazaki or U mr M, which is kind of a cool name, uh he And it's because he had in nineteen seventy six released a tape about supporting a union that was in a labor dispute with Glico way back in seventy six, and it's set and according to the police, this had a lot of similarities to the tone of letters sent by Monster with one faces could be motive. And in seventy six and seventy five there were whistleblowing incidents that were also attributed to the guy. Uh tak came about Glico's dumping of industrial waste into rivers. Uh So he was also suspective a couple other things. But here's here's the thing. His father was the boss of a local yakuza organization Akuza organization, and the guy himself apparently bore resemblance to the fox side Man, which one of our listeners on YouTube said that was just sort of a phrase for someone with crazy eyes. But I don't know again, not a not a foxologist? Is there a foxologist in the house. I just always want to There's a sketch of him you can find online, and is the way they depicted his eyes? I can see what they're saying. And there in two thousand or so there were rumors that there was actually North Korean involvement, and there were you know that that's not as readily accepted as the accusations of organized crime in general, or should I say, domestically organized organized crime. But we have to ask ourselves, you know, will will this case ever be solved? It? Will it be like a deathbed confession? What what were the long term results? What was the ultimate motivation behind this? You know, was was the group doing this profiting in some other way by um damaging the reputation of Clico may be competitors somewhere. Yeah, and it's a it's a decent question because we're really looking for here now is motive? Yes, that's the strange part. There's not really an explanation of motive, at least in the letters themselves, other than we are bad guys and it's fun to lead that kind of life. What if it was an early take on the health food movement where they were trying to punish companies who make delicious sticks with candy on them. Yeah, but again, stay away from strawberry, you know, the you know, that's that's an interesting angle too. But the problem is with that that there's not very much in a way of proof. That's just conjecture. Well, and and if you know, let's say that they were successful and they got the ransom money. When you're getting ransom money like that, even in the eighties, it's going to be trackable in some way. You know that each each UH bill is going to have numbers on it that you can trace. Sure, you would need somebody, I don't know, like an organized crime to wash that money, you know, to funnel it through different things, different gambling things or pachinko parlors, things like that, which I would make sense, But that's just connecting, you know, between gambling and those sympathizers. That isn't in any way to say that there is proof that any North Korean sympathizers were behind the monster with twenty one faces. But then again, there's not too much solid proof that the Yakzo is. It's just sort of like there the there that would yeah, because that's a crime family and this was clearly organized, well thought out. The methods of contact and delivery for the time UH did did show that this was not anyone's first rodeo you know what I mean. So what this leaves us with is another point that we should make, which is a lot of the contemporary reporting of this the stuff that was happening in the eighties at the time was of course written in Japanese and remains in Japanese. So now I'd like to put out um a request for those of you listening with knowledge of Japanese. Is there a is there an additional piece of this story that you think is missing for people who primarily speak English, And if so, what, because we'd like to hear it that for We could even put a little addendum at the end of another episode where we discuss something that you wrote to us, written to us, that would be great, That would be a great follow up, and we could also look at it on our new live show. We're on Periscope usually around four pm. Uh, I guess Thursday's or Friday's right some yeah, sometime near the end of the week Hunt And we do hope you tune in and check that out. We we hope you're enjoying looking at some of these crimes. These are just sort of one oh one instances, but yeah, le's to send you down the rabbit hole. Right, yes, or the foxhole or whatever. Right. I was going to say candy hole, but for some reason that sounds strangely dirty. It's just your face. Oh, because people eat candy. Yeah, okay, I was like a personal insult, and I thought Matt were on air. Sorry, what have I done? Um? So we're going to go ahead and in that Oh wait, do you hear that it was the fox call? Screety? He's back. Oh it's no. Oh man, I don't know if that's really what it. Fox sounds like I heard they had they kind of shriek, you know. It's interesting. Uh, there's a the domestication project that went on with foxes that you've probably heard about, right, Uh. The I believe it was a Russian project, and the idea was to see what would happen when they bred foxes increasingly for domestic purposes, turning them into pets. Because very few animals are actually domesticated. You contame individuals, but domestication is when the entire uh the entire type of animal is just ready to hang with people. So what they found was that the fox has got floppy ears and retained some juvenile characteristics, and they do make that crazy unholy sounding. Yeah, so you nailed it, but it wasn't too far off. So you were talking about Pocky, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, what about yan Yan? Have you ever had yan Yon? I have? I have not. What is ya? It's like it's like a little dipping sticks, you know. Yeah, it's like Pocky. Okay, okay, it's like I'll tell you. It's one of those things that whenever I met a place and they sell it, I have this moment where it's like dunk a ruse. It's like dunkaru Okay, okay, whatever, I'm in a place where they saw that stuff. I buy. I buy a couple just just to have on board on hands. I don't really eat sweets, but it must have been a nostalgic thing for me or something that's a fun thing to offer to guests. To me, they have them at the place where I get my bond nies. Right around the corner from my house. They've got the pocket Pokey. Do you go to Lee's. It's a Lee's bakery. Oh man. Okay. So if you're ever in Atlanta and you you like Mom and me, just sandwiches, just sandwiches or just sandwich is sort of the perfect sandwich. You gotta you gotta check out Leaves because it's so cheap. Yeah, I'm as a cheap skate. Their deal really appeals to me. You can get six sandwiches for the price of five, which, granted, is entirely too many sandwiches for one person. This episode brought to you by Leaves Bakery. Oh no, I would love it if they were, if they were sponsoring our show, that I would ask just for payment and sandwiches really that good. I once did the six sandwich deal and I just put them in the fridge and brought into work every day and it was the last week of my life. Man. Yeah, whoa, I don't know why I haven't done that. I remember that week. That was a high point for all of us. You're just smiling. Yeah, So what do you think about this? Do you think they're ever gonna find the perpetrator of the or the perpetrators? I don't know. It's it's sometimes, you know, these things just don't ever get solved. I guess I don't know. Well, it's it's also strange because we know that some organized crime families have especially in this uh in this country, some organized crime families have pretty close links with police departments and law enforcement, you know. So it's it follows then that it is entirely possible for members of the police department and members of perhaps even the Japanese media to know exactly who this is, but for one reason or another, to have participated to cover up. And uh, I'm I'm interested in this because I want to know what happened with this, you know, I want to know where it occurred. And you know, this wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking, especially in comparison to the Summerton Man. So it's quite possible that people who participated in this are still alive. Oh yeah, Oh, I'm I'm most certain because this isn't just a one or two person deal. I don't I don't think it's possible that this is one person to person deal. I mean, I know how it is today, but it seems like there was certainly a time where the yakuza wielded almost more control and power than the police force itself. And I mean it was probably you know, the police force was more beholden to the accusa than the other way around. See, I feel like we learn about that in hindsight and if we're in this forever loop of control getting larger and larger with organized crime within our institutions, but we just learned about it. I don't know, it seems to me, at least in the States. It's maybe this is completely not true, but it seems there's there's a sense that organized crime isn't you know, what it wants, what it once was, right, has it devolved or But then also it reminds me of the old question of or the old idea that organized crime is always going to be around the question. It will be who perpetrates the most, and you'll have people like you know, Gary Webb, the journalist clearly clearly said, guys, the CIA is participating organized crime and with much more success than the Gambinos or whatever. And perhaps we're perhaps we are arriving in a place where the differences between some factions of law enforcement and some factions of criminal empires are are not as distinct as they once were. So so yeah, to your appointment, it does make sense that uh, the quote unquote traditional organized crime could be falling off, but um crime, like any other thing in nature of bores a vacuum. So somebody else is going to step in. Are you wait, wait, are you guys a fan of crime shows? Mom? Stuff? Yeah? I was actually just gonna ask Matt how you felt about the True Detective finale, and don't don't ask me that, just tell me it. Did you watch it? Yeah? I did? Okay, okay, all right, really fast. So I don't think you can sit and judge something like that by just saying, oh, it was awful, and that's not that's not what that means. It means I think that there is deeper meaning to be read. From my first viewing of the season, I think that it wasn't shown as much on the surface as season one was, where you had a character like rust Cole who was kind of explaining to you what the symbols mean, what the the deeper thing that you could find within maybe these symbols within this. I think it exists there and that for that, I'm very happy. However, I think it's I really personally think it's suffered from having too many characters, trying to tell too many stories, and not being able to focus its energy onto one or two things. It was just weird for me because it almost felt like by the time it found its footing, it was like too late kind of yeah. I mean the last two episodes, three episodes even to me, we're pretty solid, and I almost like I was hate watching it up to that point. I'm not kidding, Like I was just, you know, hate watching Yeah, I really was. I was just like, this dialogue is awful, these characters don't make sense, casting is just lopsided and bizarre. Then by the end it was like, oh, wow, okay, there's really some stuff coming home to roost here, and like there's actually some really interesting development and some of the things that at the time seemed ridiculous for these characters to do actually sort of make sense in the grand picture of the things. So I would argue that maybe it's worth watching, like binge watching, you know, like give a sense of who the characters are you don't forget because it's like one thing that I had a problem with is like there would be characters that you maybe saw once or twice and then maybe we're named once or twice and then you don't even see him again until they pop up and oh they're actually really really important. But use that again. I don't want to get to overboord with it. I just wanted to do a little post because I actually wanted to talk about Ben and I discussed it briefly, and I'm sorry, Ben, I don't mean to just talk and talk and talk to you about about I think I really you like, I have pacing problems and and too many characters. You're You're right, but yeah, give it a chance. If you have not watched it yet, give it a chance. It's a good conversation starter, that's for sure. Oh yeah, oh yes, just like season one. My favorite parts of watching season one within coming to work and then discussing with everybody what we think is happening or what's going on? Oh. I loved this season one, and for an entirely selfish reason because I did think it was it was a great show and the time you spent on its shows. But I loved it because suddenly people cared about the book The King and Yellow and other stories, and uh, I've never heard of it. Well, I had only heard of it because it has, you know, it has this love crafty and air and it got sucked into that whole methos And uh, Josh might still have my copy or did I just get another copy? But the book itself has some has some pretty neat stuff to mythology. It's hitt and this for sure it has ah literally well as virtually nothing to do with this stuff. And True Detective thematically it makes sense because the Yellow King is in that book a a figure like there's this three act play, that's what. And the three act play occurs in these different stories and the ideas that when you read the first act, it's great, it's interesting. On second act blah blah blah. By the time you get to the third act, you are insane and your brain is driven to the darkness beyond the stars Decarcosa where the Yellow King dwells and that kind of stuff. And uh, that's not really what True Detective is about at all, but it is. It is an interesting thematic underpinning. And unlike the Monster with twenty one faces, the True Detective case was solved. Yes, some people sort well, there's a spiric victory, yes, and uh, not to give We don't want to give too much away here. We want you guys all to be excited about watching these shows because honestly, when there's good television or a good story put on camera, ah, it just makes us all happy. I think, Yeah, there's a there's a renaissance I believe for TV shows. But also also I defer to you guys opinion on this because you're both far more knowledgeable about film in general than I am. I'll have conversations with these guys, ladies and gentlemen, where if if a lot, if a bunch of movies come out at once, and I will walk up to maternal or some of our other coworkers, uh and ask them which one I'm supposed to watch, because they just I have died way through all of them. You know, should we should we go ahead and talk about the Gifts now? Or no? No, let us never speak of that horrible, horrible film other than to say, lady and gentlemen, we are going to help you. We're going to save two hours of your life. Don't see that film, man, I don't you know. I hate to be so blunt about it. Well you know what, Maybe you'll like it, Maybe you'll like it, takes all types. I haven't seen it. I hear great things, alright, So before I give myself it to a troubler, go on another rant. We are going to head out. Reminder, Please do let us know what you think about the monster with one in one faces. Will this ever be solved? And please let us know what other unsolved crimes exist in your neck of the woods on your part of the globe. You can write to us directly. We're Facebook and Twitter Conspiracy Stuff. You can also check out our podcast on your choice of streaming device or i ituning you can you can itune it if that's a verb, I don't know. We're we're like old school ituners. We've been around for while on that one, not as long as some, but we put in. We put in some time, uh, and we have new episodes coming out every week. We also have, as you mentioned, the live show. But hey, Matt ben Noel, you might be saying, I do have some feedback, but I don't feel comfortable posting it on a public forum like Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. We totally understand it, but we'd still love to hear from you. Write to us directly at conspiracy at how stuff works dot com from one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.

From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Dear dumb ladies, officers don't tell a lot. All crimes begin with a lie, As we say in Japan. Don't you know that? Why don't you keep it to yourself? You seem to be at a loss, so why not let us help you. We'll give you a clue. We entered the factory by the front gate. The typewriter re used is panwriter. The plastic container we used was a piece of street garbage, signed Monster with twenty one faces. Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. What you just heard was an excerpt from the subject of today's episode, as read by our very own Matt Frederick. That's me, Hello, welcome to the show. Hey Matt, thanks for coming. Uh and my name is Ben. Of course, as always we are here with with no uh fox eyes brown? About that? No, the fox eyed brown. He's gesturely as and what I assumed to be the common sign of the fox side. Oh and the fox call and the fox call. We're not going to ask you to do alright, alright, that was too far. No there, Oh my god, he did it. It's true. Yeah, as an armchair Fox expert, Yeah or Fox putologists the word I just made up. Uh, so I can verify that if that, if that were actually a Fox and where I actually Fox expert. So here is our audio follow up to an earlier video that we created about unsolved crimes. Previously, we covered the famous Tom m or tomm shut case, the case of the Summrton Man. Just I just want to say I I've always heard it as tom un with an end should, but then upon our research, we realized, no, it's it's always been tom m should always That's what that was what was written on the note. Yeah, and uh, it's it's interesting because you know, it might this is something that listeners can can help us with, perhaps because as you know, some languages that are non Romance or non Latin languages have some difficulty with translation, right, which is why for a long time, Uh, they were probably if you're old enough, you may remember in your lifetime some names of cities have changed, like Bombay became Mumbai, uh, picking Beijing, things like that. So this might be a case of Fitzgerald the author who did the translation of the rubiat which we refer this may be a case of him uh using maybe an outdated nomenclature or something like that. Neither you uh, where I speak FARSI is that? No? I mean it, I do not speak Okay, Well, the Somerton case was only one of the cases we mentioned in the video. We also mentioned, uh, some bizarre spree killings in Belgium, some feet that were shown up all over the place in the northwest north Pacific, northwest. Yeah, and we also mentioned one other case, one of the most famous unsolved cases in Japanese criminal history, and that is what is known as the Monster with twenty one faces met. What you just read at the top of the show was a quote from an actual letter sent to some police departments. Uh, I have kind of taunting at very much taunting the police departments. Yeah, as things were kicking into high gears. So let's go ahead and just start at the beginning. What what happened? How did this case begin? Well, it all begins with this candy company called Glico in Japan. Uh. And like all other companies, Glico has a CEO, so their their CEO's name was Katsuhisa Eazaki, and these two armed masked men broke into Katsuhisa's mother's house and stole a key uh from for his house, Okay, from his mom. And this was when this happened. Uh. They they did some some pretty heinous things. They bound some people up right, They tied up his wife and uh one of his children, and cut the telephone cords. They raided the bathroom where they found the CEO and his other two kids hiding. That's right. And then they abduct abducted the CEO and they held him hostage at a warehouse. Uh. They issue a ransom as wealth one billion yen and one rams of gold bars. Uh. That's got to be a tense situation if you're the CEO of the company and you wonder, well, one billion yen one of gold, what's going to happen to me? What's the board can't do? If the board gonna cut their losses and be like, yeah, sorry, we can find another ceo. Uh. Luckily he did not have to address that, uh frightening question. Uh. And and you know he didn't have to get to the ultimate answer because he managed to escape the warehouse three days later. However, he was not able to identify any of his abductors. And this was far from over. Yeah, so these guys had masks on. I'm assuming they wore them the whole time. So I mean, when once you're out and you're trying to figure out who these people are, if you don't have clear motive already beforehand, then how do you know who these guys are? That's that is a scary, scary situation. So a few weeks later, a couple other things happen that some vehicles that are in the parking lot at Glico are set on fire. Then there is a container of hydrochloric acid um and and a letter that accompanied right yeah, and a threatening letter written to Glico itself. They were found in Ibaraki. And let me take a moment here to point out that my Japanese is going to be terrible. My pronunciations, uh and thank you to everybody in the Summrson case. There are people who wrote in and said, hey, guys, your your pronunciation of the Australian stuff not that bad. Yeah we did, Okay, Well we have we have some really supportive audience C plus B maybe so this uh so the Japanese is not going to be spot on here. But the warehouse where this guy was originally held hostage, that's where this That's the same town that this letter came to. And this was the first and a string of letters from a person or a group of people dubbing itself the Monster with one Faces. Interesting side note here, they did make up that name. No, No, it's based off of a Japanese detective series, I believe, which is fictional. Uh And but it's pretty well known in Japan. It's named after the villain in one of those detective in that detective series. Uh. These letters claim that Glico candies were laced with potassium cyanide soda, meaning that it would quite possibly kill people who ate it. Yeah, and if not kill them, make them very very very ill. And you can't have that if you're a large company like that. That this is just not this is not a good idea to allow this product to go out. So Glico, as you might assume, they pulled, they pulled their their stuff off the shelves, but they didn't just pull the possibly contaminated once. They just pulled everything. They pulled a lot of stuff and they were also, um, they were doing this based entirely on the threat. Yes, there was not evidence found at that time, but this was a massive loss for the company, twenty one million dollar loss. And keep in mind this is in the eighties. Uh. And they had the layoff almost five hundred employees because of this expense. And that's a twenty one million dollar US right yeah, yeah, yeah, not yet and uh, after months of tormenting Glico, the Monster it's twenty one faces, uh forgives them, says we forgive Glico and that was their final letter. But they weren't done yet. But it's crazy. I guess they they caused enough damage. I'm trying to put my head in the mind of these the Monster twenty one faces. Just I guess they saw that the company had been I defeated in a way, at least according to their standards, so they're like, you know what, it's okay, guys were cool. So they moved on, and they they turned their sights on a couple other companies who produced food, um oh Man Marudai, ham House Foods Corporation and Fujia. Right yeah, and this this was straight up extortion pretty much, right. Uh. And at the time in Japan. It's important to note that this was a campaign of over terror. You know, people were some for the first time, were terrified about the possibility of crime because Japan, in comparison to a lot of other countries, is a very safe place. You know, this is this is not the place where you would think you would accidentally die because you ate you bought some pockey, which is, by the way, my my favorite, my favorite thing that Glico makes. You know what I'm talking about, the little yeah yeah, don't get the strawberry. I'm not I'm not a fan of strawberry, and I have no illusions about the nutritional value or lack thereof. Man that chocolate saw stuff is on point anyway. So they told Nade that they would stop harassing this company if one of their employees gave him ransom money fifty million years, specifically on a train. So the police forces have an investigator disguise himself as an employee, and while he's disguisedes an employee, they don't see exactly the place where they're instructed to hand off the money because they're supposed to like throw it from a train kind of. But they do see a guy later becomes the prime suspect as a representative of the monster. Twenty one faces and that is the so called fox eyed Man, which goes back to your nickname today. No, the man was well built, he had short hair and it was permed, and he was and he was described as having eyes like those of a fox. So after this police officer investigator dress his employee drops the ransom, he and this other guy try to follow the fox eyed Man, but they lose him, and then they get an other close chance to catch him again, but he evades him again. He's pretty good at it. It feels so cinematic to me. It feels like this is a script that was written. But no, No, ladies and gentlemen, this happened. Yeah. And after the after this event and during these close calls, the monster is mailing more harassing letters towards the police. And a year later, after a year of unsuccessfully investigating this finding no leads, catching no criminals, the police superintendent, a fellow named Yamamoto, commits suicide because of this case, and he does it by setting himself on fire, allegedly because he's ashamed of his failure to capture the fox eyde man. So five days after the death, little less than a week, the Monster of twenty one Faces sends a final letter to the media, Matt, do you want to do the honors? Sure? Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture police died. How stupid of him. We've got no friends or secret hiding place, and she got it's Yoshino or Shikata who should have died? What have they been doing for as long as one year? In five months? Don't let bad guys like us get away with it. There are many more fools who want to copy us. No career. Yamamoto died like a man, so we decided to give our condolence. We decided to forget about torturing food making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food making companies, it's not us, but someone copying us. We are bad guys. That means we've got more to do other than bullying companies. It's fun to lead a bad man's life. Monster with twenty one faces And with that, the monster at twenty one faces did not surface again, or at least hasn't hasn't been seen to surface. So this crime, this series of creams, remains unsolved seventeen months from the initial kidnapping to the last known letter which you heard part of there, and this was a historical and historical hinge. You know, this turn the public perception of a crime free and safe Japan, and it leaves us with a lot of questions. One one thing that people would say is that the suspects would most likely be yakuza, you know, the organized crime rings of Japan. It certainly seems like there was a lot of organization going on, coordinating where to be and when and knowing information about their victims. And in j statute of limitations ran out for the kidnapping an assault, and then in two thousand the limitations for the poisoned food products also expired. So what's interesting is the fox sybe man as well as some other unidentified guy in a hat we're seeing different times during the seventeen months. The guy in the hat was actually seen putting food onto a shelf, uh so actually participating in the in the poison right. So after the after the release of the identicate, you know, to try to find a perpetrator in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police believed the culprit was a guy named Manabu Miyazaki or U mr M, which is kind of a cool name, uh he And it's because he had in nineteen seventy six released a tape about supporting a union that was in a labor dispute with Glico way back in seventy six, and it's set and according to the police, this had a lot of similarities to the tone of letters sent by Monster with one faces could be motive. And in seventy six and seventy five there were whistleblowing incidents that were also attributed to the guy. Uh tak came about Glico's dumping of industrial waste into rivers. Uh So he was also suspective a couple other things. But here's here's the thing. His father was the boss of a local yakuza organization Akuza organization, and the guy himself apparently bore resemblance to the fox side Man, which one of our listeners on YouTube said that was just sort of a phrase for someone with crazy eyes. But I don't know again, not a not a foxologist? Is there a foxologist in the house. I just always want to There's a sketch of him you can find online, and is the way they depicted his eyes? I can see what they're saying. And there in two thousand or so there were rumors that there was actually North Korean involvement, and there were you know that that's not as readily accepted as the accusations of organized crime in general, or should I say, domestically organized organized crime. But we have to ask ourselves, you know, will will this case ever be solved? It? Will it be like a deathbed confession? What what were the long term results? What was the ultimate motivation behind this? You know, was was the group doing this profiting in some other way by um damaging the reputation of Clico may be competitors somewhere. Yeah, and it's a it's a decent question because we're really looking for here now is motive? Yes, that's the strange part. There's not really an explanation of motive, at least in the letters themselves, other than we are bad guys and it's fun to lead that kind of life. What if it was an early take on the health food movement where they were trying to punish companies who make delicious sticks with candy on them. Yeah, but again, stay away from strawberry, you know, the you know, that's that's an interesting angle too. But the problem is with that that there's not very much in a way of proof. That's just conjecture. Well, and and if you know, let's say that they were successful and they got the ransom money. When you're getting ransom money like that, even in the eighties, it's going to be trackable in some way. You know that each each UH bill is going to have numbers on it that you can trace. Sure, you would need somebody, I don't know, like an organized crime to wash that money, you know, to funnel it through different things, different gambling things or pachinko parlors, things like that, which I would make sense, But that's just connecting, you know, between gambling and those sympathizers. That isn't in any way to say that there is proof that any North Korean sympathizers were behind the monster with twenty one faces. But then again, there's not too much solid proof that the Yakzo is. It's just sort of like there the there that would yeah, because that's a crime family and this was clearly organized, well thought out. The methods of contact and delivery for the time UH did did show that this was not anyone's first rodeo you know what I mean. So what this leaves us with is another point that we should make, which is a lot of the contemporary reporting of this the stuff that was happening in the eighties at the time was of course written in Japanese and remains in Japanese. So now I'd like to put out um a request for those of you listening with knowledge of Japanese. Is there a is there an additional piece of this story that you think is missing for people who primarily speak English, And if so, what, because we'd like to hear it that for We could even put a little addendum at the end of another episode where we discuss something that you wrote to us, written to us, that would be great, That would be a great follow up, and we could also look at it on our new live show. We're on Periscope usually around four pm. Uh, I guess Thursday's or Friday's right some yeah, sometime near the end of the week Hunt And we do hope you tune in and check that out. We we hope you're enjoying looking at some of these crimes. These are just sort of one oh one instances, but yeah, le's to send you down the rabbit hole. Right, yes, or the foxhole or whatever. Right. I was going to say candy hole, but for some reason that sounds strangely dirty. It's just your face. Oh, because people eat candy. Yeah, okay, I was like a personal insult, and I thought Matt were on air. Sorry, what have I done? Um? So we're going to go ahead and in that Oh wait, do you hear that it was the fox call? Screety? He's back. Oh it's no. Oh man, I don't know if that's really what it. Fox sounds like I heard they had they kind of shriek, you know. It's interesting. Uh, there's a the domestication project that went on with foxes that you've probably heard about, right, Uh. The I believe it was a Russian project, and the idea was to see what would happen when they bred foxes increasingly for domestic purposes, turning them into pets. Because very few animals are actually domesticated. You contame individuals, but domestication is when the entire uh the entire type of animal is just ready to hang with people. So what they found was that the fox has got floppy ears and retained some juvenile characteristics, and they do make that crazy unholy sounding. Yeah, so you nailed it, but it wasn't too far off. So you were talking about Pocky, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, what about yan Yan? Have you ever had yan Yon? I have? I have not. What is ya? It's like it's like a little dipping sticks, you know. Yeah, it's like Pocky. Okay, okay, it's like I'll tell you. It's one of those things that whenever I met a place and they sell it, I have this moment where it's like dunk a ruse. It's like dunkaru Okay, okay, whatever, I'm in a place where they saw that stuff. I buy. I buy a couple just just to have on board on hands. I don't really eat sweets, but it must have been a nostalgic thing for me or something that's a fun thing to offer to guests. To me, they have them at the place where I get my bond nies. Right around the corner from my house. They've got the pocket Pokey. Do you go to Lee's. It's a Lee's bakery. Oh man. Okay. So if you're ever in Atlanta and you you like Mom and me, just sandwiches, just sandwiches or just sandwich is sort of the perfect sandwich. You gotta you gotta check out Leaves because it's so cheap. Yeah, I'm as a cheap skate. Their deal really appeals to me. You can get six sandwiches for the price of five, which, granted, is entirely too many sandwiches for one person. This episode brought to you by Leaves Bakery. Oh no, I would love it if they were, if they were sponsoring our show, that I would ask just for payment and sandwiches really that good. I once did the six sandwich deal and I just put them in the fridge and brought into work every day and it was the last week of my life. Man. Yeah, whoa, I don't know why I haven't done that. I remember that week. That was a high point for all of us. You're just smiling. Yeah, So what do you think about this? Do you think they're ever gonna find the perpetrator of the or the perpetrators? I don't know. It's it's sometimes, you know, these things just don't ever get solved. I guess I don't know. Well, it's it's also strange because we know that some organized crime families have especially in this uh in this country, some organized crime families have pretty close links with police departments and law enforcement, you know. So it's it follows then that it is entirely possible for members of the police department and members of perhaps even the Japanese media to know exactly who this is, but for one reason or another, to have participated to cover up. And uh, I'm I'm interested in this because I want to know what happened with this, you know, I want to know where it occurred. And you know, this wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking, especially in comparison to the Summerton Man. So it's quite possible that people who participated in this are still alive. Oh yeah, Oh, I'm I'm most certain because this isn't just a one or two person deal. I don't I don't think it's possible that this is one person to person deal. I mean, I know how it is today, but it seems like there was certainly a time where the yakuza wielded almost more control and power than the police force itself. And I mean it was probably you know, the police force was more beholden to the accusa than the other way around. See, I feel like we learn about that in hindsight and if we're in this forever loop of control getting larger and larger with organized crime within our institutions, but we just learned about it. I don't know, it seems to me, at least in the States. It's maybe this is completely not true, but it seems there's there's a sense that organized crime isn't you know, what it wants, what it once was, right, has it devolved or But then also it reminds me of the old question of or the old idea that organized crime is always going to be around the question. It will be who perpetrates the most, and you'll have people like you know, Gary Webb, the journalist clearly clearly said, guys, the CIA is participating organized crime and with much more success than the Gambinos or whatever. And perhaps we're perhaps we are arriving in a place where the differences between some factions of law enforcement and some factions of criminal empires are are not as distinct as they once were. So so yeah, to your appointment, it does make sense that uh, the quote unquote traditional organized crime could be falling off, but um crime, like any other thing in nature of bores a vacuum. So somebody else is going to step in. Are you wait, wait, are you guys a fan of crime shows? Mom? Stuff? Yeah? I was actually just gonna ask Matt how you felt about the True Detective finale, and don't don't ask me that, just tell me it. Did you watch it? Yeah? I did? Okay, okay, all right, really fast. So I don't think you can sit and judge something like that by just saying, oh, it was awful, and that's not that's not what that means. It means I think that there is deeper meaning to be read. From my first viewing of the season, I think that it wasn't shown as much on the surface as season one was, where you had a character like rust Cole who was kind of explaining to you what the symbols mean, what the the deeper thing that you could find within maybe these symbols within this. I think it exists there and that for that, I'm very happy. However, I think it's I really personally think it's suffered from having too many characters, trying to tell too many stories, and not being able to focus its energy onto one or two things. It was just weird for me because it almost felt like by the time it found its footing, it was like too late kind of yeah. I mean the last two episodes, three episodes even to me, we're pretty solid, and I almost like I was hate watching it up to that point. I'm not kidding, Like I was just, you know, hate watching Yeah, I really was. I was just like, this dialogue is awful, these characters don't make sense, casting is just lopsided and bizarre. Then by the end it was like, oh, wow, okay, there's really some stuff coming home to roost here, and like there's actually some really interesting development and some of the things that at the time seemed ridiculous for these characters to do actually sort of make sense in the grand picture of the things. So I would argue that maybe it's worth watching, like binge watching, you know, like give a sense of who the characters are you don't forget because it's like one thing that I had a problem with is like there would be characters that you maybe saw once or twice and then maybe we're named once or twice and then you don't even see him again until they pop up and oh they're actually really really important. But use that again. I don't want to get to overboord with it. I just wanted to do a little post because I actually wanted to talk about Ben and I discussed it briefly, and I'm sorry, Ben, I don't mean to just talk and talk and talk to you about about I think I really you like, I have pacing problems and and too many characters. You're You're right, but yeah, give it a chance. If you have not watched it yet, give it a chance. It's a good conversation starter, that's for sure. Oh yeah, oh yes, just like season one. My favorite parts of watching season one within coming to work and then discussing with everybody what we think is happening or what's going on? Oh. I loved this season one, and for an entirely selfish reason because I did think it was it was a great show and the time you spent on its shows. But I loved it because suddenly people cared about the book The King and Yellow and other stories, and uh, I've never heard of it. Well, I had only heard of it because it has, you know, it has this love crafty and air and it got sucked into that whole methos And uh, Josh might still have my copy or did I just get another copy? But the book itself has some has some pretty neat stuff to mythology. It's hitt and this for sure it has ah literally well as virtually nothing to do with this stuff. And True Detective thematically it makes sense because the Yellow King is in that book a a figure like there's this three act play, that's what. And the three act play occurs in these different stories and the ideas that when you read the first act, it's great, it's interesting. On second act blah blah blah. By the time you get to the third act, you are insane and your brain is driven to the darkness beyond the stars Decarcosa where the Yellow King dwells and that kind of stuff. And uh, that's not really what True Detective is about at all, but it is. It is an interesting thematic underpinning. And unlike the Monster with twenty one faces, the True Detective case was solved. Yes, some people sort well, there's a spiric victory, yes, and uh, not to give We don't want to give too much away here. We want you guys all to be excited about watching these shows because honestly, when there's good television or a good story put on camera, ah, it just makes us all happy. I think, Yeah, there's a there's a renaissance I believe for TV shows. But also also I defer to you guys opinion on this because you're both far more knowledgeable about film in general than I am. I'll have conversations with these guys, ladies and gentlemen, where if if a lot, if a bunch of movies come out at once, and I will walk up to maternal or some of our other coworkers, uh and ask them which one I'm supposed to watch, because they just I have died way through all of them. You know, should we should we go ahead and talk about the Gifts now? Or no? No, let us never speak of that horrible, horrible film other than to say, lady and gentlemen, we are going to help you. We're going to save two hours of your life. Don't see that film, man, I don't you know. I hate to be so blunt about it. Well you know what, Maybe you'll like it, Maybe you'll like it, takes all types. I haven't seen it. I hear great things, alright, So before I give myself it to a troubler, go on another rant. We are going to head out. Reminder, Please do let us know what you think about the monster with one in one faces. Will this ever be solved? And please let us know what other unsolved crimes exist in your neck of the woods on your part of the globe. You can write to us directly. We're Facebook and Twitter Conspiracy Stuff. You can also check out our podcast on your choice of streaming device or i ituning you can you can itune it if that's a verb, I don't know. We're we're like old school ituners. We've been around for while on that one, not as long as some, but we put in. We put in some time, uh, and we have new episodes coming out every week. We also have, as you mentioned, the live show. But hey, Matt ben Noel, you might be saying, I do have some feedback, but I don't feel comfortable posting it on a public forum like Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. We totally understand it, but we'd still love to hear from you. Write to us directly at conspiracy at how stuff works dot com from one on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.