A man jealous of a business rival has confessed to spiking his competitor's breakfast snacks with rat poison which made hundreds sick and killed 38 people in eastern China, state television said yesterday.
Chen Zhengping told police he was driven by hatred of the owner of a thriving fast food store in Tangshan, a small industrial town in Jiangsu province, China Central Television (CCTV) said.
Tangshan residents were shocked to see customers at the tiny Heshengyuan Soy Milk chain store collapse, some bleeding from the mouth and ears, after eating there Saturday morning.
Police seized Chen on Sunday in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, hundreds of kilometers from Tangshan, state television said. It gave no further details about the man.
But Hong Kong's Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po said he was a cousin of the restaurant owner and had opened a rival but less successful business in Tangshan, just outside Nanjing city.
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