A 45-year-old sheep farmer in the UK is on trial over a blackmail plot that involves shards of metal being hid in baby food.
The suspect, Nigel Wright, is accused of demanding 200 Bitcoin from Tesco, a supermarket giant, to reveal which and how many of the baby foods had been contaminated with shards of metal.
Blackmail over Bitcoin
Wright's trial began on August 11 and he pleaded not guilty to two counts of contaminating goods and four counts of blackmail.
The trial heard that Wright posed as "Guy Brush" a member of a group of disgruntled farmers that he called the "Dairy Pirates" who were not happy and are being underpaid for their produce.
Wright demanded 100 Bitcoin back in May 2018, but the ransom double to 200 Bitcoins in February 2020, in a series of threatening emails and letters to Tesco, as reported by Metro UK.
"Guy Brush" also threatened to contaminate other products with salmonella, as well as homemade chemical he had concocted, if the money was not given to him, the prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher talked to Independent.Co Wright's letters claimed that he had injected salmonella into tins of food sold in Tesco.
Later, the suspect sent some white powder in an envelope, claiming that it was a homemade chemical of which he had over 300 grams and that he will use them to contaminate more products if he was not given the money he was demanding. The suspect then moved on to threatening that he will put pieces of metal into jars of baby food.
Prosecutor Christopher said that the suspect stated that a dremel drill had been used to create a very small hole in cans that contains fruit and that bacteria had been injected, adding that he had scattered the cans in different stores all over the UK.
Between November 2019 and December 2019, two mothers found pieces of metal in jars of baby food as they were feeding their babies.
The baby food was bought at Tesco stores. However, there was no other evidence found that the other products were contaminated.
Another blackmail charge
Wright is also accused of another charge of blackmail, in which he threatened to kill a driver after a massive road rage incident, he demanded the driver to pay him $200k worth of BItcoin. He tracked down the driver's address and sent the victim a picture of his wife with a target and bullet holes.
Eventually, the authorities were able to trace the incident to Wright, and they raided his sheep farm. He lives on the farm with his wife and his two children.
The family admitted to some of what Wright did, but said that Wright only did it because a group of Travelers had threatened to rape his wife and kill his children if he did not pay them £1m.
Prosecutor Christopher said, per The Guardian, that the jury will have to determine whether his story of being threatened by Travelers is true or if it was just made up to justify his blackmails.
The prosecution suggests that it changes whenever he is confronted with more evidence which he has to explain, which means his story about the Travelers could be completely untrue.