OSAKA -- A 26-year-old woman was arrested Friday on suspicion of threatening to contaminate eyewash products made by Japan's largest pharmaceutical firm, police said. She subsequently admitted the allegations.
Shortly after the police began questioning her, Sayaka Fujino, a part-time worker from Hanno, Saitama Prefecture, admitted sending Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. a letter July 5 saying several dozen contaminated products had been put on the shelves of a pharmacy in Saitama Prefecture.
The police said she also sent the Osaka-based company a bottle of contaminated Mytear SG eye liquid.
The letter, which the firm received on July 7, had the name and address of a man as its sender. However, investigators said they believed that a woman was involved because the handwriting in the latter showed signs of a curved script more likely to be the writing of a woman.
The man named in the letter was a 19-year-old youth residing in Hanno. Fujino had in the past dated the youth, police said.
According to investigators, Fujino had called and written to the man on several occasions, demanding that he resume their relationship. In April, police said, the woman sent a letter threatening the youth to his father.
Fujino reportedly told investigators she had imitated another blackmail case from June involving Santen Pharmaceutical Co., which also produces eyedrop products.
The incident forced Takeda to recall a total of 107,000 bottles of Mytear SG eyedrops as well as another brand, Catalin K, costing the firm some 150 million yen in losses, the police said.
Takeda officials expressed relief that the suspect apparently held no particular grudge against the firm, but some said they were surprised to discover that a woman had been arrested for the crime.