Key facts
- Austrian federal criminal police said they received 13 reports of metal objects found in sweets collected by children at Halloween.
- Austrian police said no reported case has required medical treatment.
- Bavarian police reported as many as 25 cases of sweets containing needles, screws or nails.
- A nine-year-old girl in Bremervörde, Germany, hurt her tongue on a chocolate bar containing a 5cm pin.
- Hungarian police opened a criminal investigation after objects were found in sweets in Gyömrő.
- Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner called the incidents "cowardly, malicious and in some cases life-threatening".
Austrian federal criminal police said on Wednesday that they had received 13 reports of metal objects, including nails, needles and pins, found in Halloween sweets collected by children at several locations across the country. No reported case has required medical treatment, the police said, and they urged parents and children to check all Halloween sweets before they are eaten.
Police in Germany, Austria and Hungary are investigating similar finds and have warned parents to check their children's treats. Cases were reported from Bavaria in the south-east of Germany to Lower Saxony in the north.
A nine-year-old girl hurt her tongue while eating a chocolate bar in Bremervörde, west of Hamburg, and a 5cm-long (2in) pin was found inside it. Bavarian police said initial figures for the year suggested a significant increase in incidents, with as many as 25 reports of sweets containing needles, screws or nails, and added that similar cases had been reported in the past two years.
In Hungary, police launched a criminal investigation after nails, screws and pieces of wire were found in sweets handed to children who had been trick-or-treating in and around Gyömrő, east of Budapest. The local authority said one girl was handed a toffee with a nail in a chocolate wrapper and noticed in time; she did not swallow it.
In Austria, police said investigations were under way in four states and that a 10-year-old girl suffered a minor injury to her mouth when she bit into a small chocolate bar in the Amstetten area, east of Linz. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner condemned the incidents as "cowardly, malicious and in some cases life-threatening". Lower Austria Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner said the perpetrators had to feel the full force of the law.
Police in the Middle Franconia region of western Bavaria warned of the risk of copycat actions after a mother found a needle in her child's chocolate bar and reported it. She later returned to police to say her child had admitted to inserting the needle.