Austrian police have arrested a 39-year-old man suspected of lacing jars of baby food with rat poison in an alleged extortion scheme targeting a major baby food manufacturer. The suspect was apprehended in Burgenland, a state in eastern Austria roughly 60 kilometres south of Vienna, and has been charged with deliberately causing a public danger and attempted grievous bodily harm.

The tampered products were made by HiPP, a German-based baby food company. Authorities believe the suspect deliberately contaminated jars of the company's carrot and potato baby food and then demanded €2 million in cryptocurrency from the manufacturer, according to reports citing Austrian tabloid Krone. HiPP subsequently issued a product recall in Austria, and supermarkets in Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia pulled the affected products from shelves as a precaution.

In total, five contaminated jars were recovered across the three countries before being consumed. One jar, purchased at a Spar supermarket in Eisenstadt, the capital of Burgenland, was found to contain 15 micrograms of rat poison. A sixth jar sold at the same supermarket is also suspected to have been tampered with but has not yet been recovered. Austrian investigators were alerted to the threat partly through cooperation with German police, who had been tracking the extortion attempt and provided a tip that poisoned products may have been in circulation in the Eisenstadt area.

Police said they are continuing to question the suspect and have declined to release further details about his identity or precise motive. HiPP stated that other products in its range were not affected by the contamination attempt and that there is no reason to believe tampered jars are circulating in other countries.

The case highlights the serious risks posed by product tampering as a form of corporate extortion. The swift coordination between Austrian, German, Czech and Slovak authorities proved critical in recovering the dangerous jars before any child was harmed.