Austrian police said on Saturday they had arrested a 39-year-old suspect in connection with the discovery of rat poison in a baby food package, in what the German manufacturer described as an extortion attempt.
German police had said five packages of the same type of baby food produced by the German brand Hibb were found last month in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, before they could be consumed.
A sixth package, believed to have been in Austria, has not yet been found.
A police spokesman in the eastern state of Burgenland, where the package containing the poison was found, said, “Today we successfully arrested a suspect, a 39-year-old man,” but declined to provide further details.
Earlier on Saturday, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported that the man had been arrested in the state of Salzburg, which borders Germany. While the company “Hip” did not disclose details about the nature of the extortion, the Austrian newspaper “Die Presse” reported shortly after the case came to light that an email was sent to Hipp in March demanding €2 million ($2.3 million) within six days, but the company only noticed it two weeks after the deadline.
Hip stated shortly afterward that the email was sent to a mass mailing address that is not frequently checked.
