Medical pills (illustration)
Medical pills (illustration)Flash 90

Local Italian food police (Nas) have launched a probe into how a Zofenopril tablet came to be placed inside a Kinder Surprise egg. The chocolate egg in question was opened by a child in the Italian town of Torrice, in the Lazio province. 

The case is proving to be one tough egg to crack. The Local reported that the chocolate treat's manufacturing company, Ferrero, is claiming to be the wounded party in the case. Ferrero is also the producer of the widely enjoyed chocolate spread Nutella.

The case has grown in complexity as Ferrero told the police that the chocolate batch which the egg in question was made in was produced in a plant in the Italian town of Alba, while the egg capsule that the toy comes in is produced in Eastern Europe. What is even more boggling is that Zofenopril is a drug that is only available in Italy.

Trying to determine how the pill came to be in the capsule has so far left the police wondering, while Ferrero has said that they too are interested to know how this came to be. 

Zofenopril is a drug that is used to reduce hypertension and can be dangerous for children to take. The parents of the boy who found the pill intervened in time and prevented the boy from ingesting it. They immediately took the pill and the egg it came in and brought it to the local police.   

Nas has no idea who put the pill inside the egg or why, but they have said that they now suspect it was placed there deliberately.

“We're not ruling anything out but the evidence at the moment points to sabotage,” an investigator told La Repubblica.

In November, a 73-year-old grandmother used a Kinder egg to smuggle drugs into a Spanish prison for her grandson.