The Chinese-made frozen gyoza that has sickened scores of Japanese residents may have been intentionally contaminated with pesticide, Japanese police say.
According to this Kyodo News article, police are “looking into the possibility the incidents are attempted murder cases.”
Officials say that the highly toxic pesticide methamidophos, which caused serious illness to one girl, was concentrated enough in the gyoza that it “cannot be considered as mere pesticide residue.” Because methamidophos is not used in Japan, there is a chance that the dumplings were contaminated before they left China.
There are, however, complications in this developing story. Diplomats from both China and Japan will have to cooperate with each other due to the fact that “the two countries have yet to ratify the bilateral criminal investigation cooperation treaty signed in December to allow direct exchanges between their investigators.”
