A child in Neustadt-Glewe, in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, suffered minor injuries to the mouth after a needle was found hidden in Halloween Candy, police said. The report follows an earlier case in which a nine-year-old girl in Lower Saxony injured her tongue on a tampered chocolate bar; the severity of her injury was not known in the report.
Police in Rostock also received reports of three further incidents in the district of Northwest Mecklenburg. People in Gadebusch, Carlow and Schönberg said they had found sweets containing needles. In each case, the candy had been collected on Halloween evening.
A day earlier, Schönberg had reported another discovery of dangerous objects in Halloween treats. Police are investigating how the needles got into the sweets and who was responsible.
Police urged parents to inspect collected candy for puncture marks, damaged packaging or other irregularities, while remaining cautious even when wrappers appear intact. Suspect sweets should not be eaten; police advised keeping them with their packaging and reporting them. Authorities have also reported tampered sweets containing needles, nails, screws and other metal objects in numerous German states, affecting products including chocolate bars, chewy candy, gummy sweets and wafer bars.
Sources: Der Spiegel.