Dangerous Halloween spoils – Families discover screws and needles in candy

In several places in Germany, children found needles or other metal objects in their collected Halloween candy. The police reported such cases in Thuringia, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, among others.

In Thuringia, for example, children in Leinefelde-Worbis in the Eichsfeld district discovered metal needles in some sweets. An investigation is underway for attempted grievous bodily harm.

Several needles in hazelnut cuts

Cases are also reported in two places in Baden-Württemberg: In Filderstadt (Esslingen district), two families found several needles in two milk-hazelnut slices on Halloween evening that their children had brought with them from collecting candy. According to police, the needles could not be seen from the outside. The police believe that an unknown person intentionally stuck the needles into the candy.

The Konstanz police headquarters from Rielasingen-Worblingen (Konstanz district) reported something similar. Individually packaged wafer slices contained metallic foreign bodies. Exactly what items were involved remained unclear at first.

Parents also found sharp pieces of metal in their children's Halloween candy in several places in Bavaria. In Landshut, chewy sweets and chocolate bars collected had screws on them. In the west of Nuremberg and in Neuburg, children found needles while unpacking chocolate bars. Even before the children could eat the candy, their parents noticed the dangerous objects and alerted the police. According to the information, no one was injured.

Also notes about chocolate bars and chewy sweets

In Hanover, a nine-year-old girl who had been moving from house to house with her guardians discovered a sewing needle in three individually wrapped sweets. As the police further announced, it was a chocolate bar and two chewy sweets. The child remained unharmed.

In Bremen, a mother who was out with her children on Halloween found a chocolate bar with a nail in it that evening and informed the police. In Salzgitter, a needle was also discovered in a chocolate bar that was given as a gift. In both cases, officers are investigating attempted grievous bodily harm.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the police reported a similar find that night, but it has been cleared up: In Appenheim in the Mainz-Bingen district, a boy discovered a chewy candy with two tiny magnets. However, according to the police, the investigation showed that there had been no manipulation of the candy by a third party. “The magnets got into the candy by mistake,” the police said.

What do the police advise?

Anyone who finds suspicious candy should keep it and its packaging and report it to the local police station, the police advised. If possible, parents should not remove any foreign bodies themselves in order to preserve traces.

In recent years there have been several similar cases in Germany in which children found metal objects in Halloween candy. In 2025, a mother in Middle Franconia discovered a two-centimeter-long nail in her daughter's Halloween candy.