The Monster with 21 Faces
The Glico-Morinaga Case — a kidnapping and a country’s food supply held hostage in Japan
On March 18, 1984, at just after 9 p.m., masked kidnappers armed with guns entered the home of 42-year-old Katsuhisa Ezaki, President of the Ezaki Glico Company, known to most simply as “Glico”.
Though the company sold everything from ice cream to hamburger meat, they were best known for sweets such as Pucchin Puddings, Pocky Chocolates, and Glico Caramels. They boasted that their products were made with health-boosting oyster glycogen which would promote a stronger populace.
The kidnappers gained entry after forcing their way into the residence of Ezaki’s mother. They bound and gagged her before taking her spare keys and using them to gain entrance to the Ezaki home next door to her. There, they dragged Ezaki out of his tub mid-bath. His wife and children were bound, gagged, and left behind while a still naked Ezaki was forced out of the house and shoved into a vehicle waiting outside.
Ezaki was taken to an Ibaraki warehouse along the river docks as his kidnappers demanded their ransom. They requested one billion yen (nearly nine million US dollars today) and 220…
