Tampering can refer to many forms of sabotage but the term is often used to mean intentional modification of products in a way that would make them harmful to the consumer.
The crime is often linked with attempts to extort money from the manufacturer, and in many cases no contamination to a product ever takes place.
At least twelve people died and a further thirty-five became seriously ill in the paraquat murders, which were a series of indiscriminate beverage poisonings carried out in western and central Japan in 1985.
[1][2] These cases often focus on determining whether the contamination occurred during manufacturing, either accidentally or intentionally, or whether the claims made by the complaining customers are real or fraudulent.
The manufacturer convincingly demonstrated that the contamination could not have taken place at the bottling plant, and several people were proven to have put the needles in themselves.