Nigel Wright, a sheep farmer from Britain, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Monday for plotting to lace baby food with metal shards in order to blackmail Tesco, a major British supermarket.
Wright was seen entering the baby food aisle in the Lockerbie, Scotland, store before tampering with the food on the shelves, the Daily Mail reported.
Tesco immediately issued a product recall after two mothers found pieces of the metal in the Heinz baby food jars, according to the Independent. As a result of the recall, 42,000 jars of Heinz baby food were returned. (RELATED: Man Arrested After Allegedly Putting Razor Blades In Pizza Dough, Police Say)
The baby food included in the recall includes a variety of flavors, including Sunday Chicken Dinner, Winter Veggies, Spaghetti Bolognese, and others.
Wright was working with a group of farmers upset with Tesco for purchasing their milk at a low price, AP reported.
Wright claimed he was “forced to carry out the baby food plot by travelers who were threatening him.”
He demanded the supermarket pay him £1.4 million or the babies who ate the food would be “seriously or fatally injured,” per BBC News.
The threat led to Britain’s largest blackmail investigation, including more than 100 officers, the Guardian reported.
Officers found pictures on Wright’s laptop of the contaminated baby food when his house was searched by police.
At trial, Justice Mark Warby addressed Wright, saying, “You chose to use threats of a particularly blood-curdling nature, deliberately designed to exploit the vulnerability of children, and the consequent vulnerability of a supermarket concerned for its business,” Justice Mark Warby said to Wright at trial, per AP.
Wright was convicted of two counts of contaminating goods and three counts of blackmail.