The Tesco blackmail plot was an extortion attempt against the British supermarket chain Tesco and which led to the largest blackmail investigation in the UK. Nigel Wright, 45, from Lincolnshire was sentenced at the Old Bailey for blackmail after he plotted to extort £1.4 million from the supermarket giant. Threats A series of letters and emails were sent to Tesco, threatening to contaminate baby food with salmonella, white powder and knives. They demanded £1.4m in bitcoin and used aliases such as "Guy Brush" and "The Dairy Pirates". They claimed to be from a group of farmers angry at the low price of milk. Contaminated food found In Lockerbie Morven Smith had already fed a few spoonfuls of Heinz sweet and sour chicken to her ten month old baby when she found a metal fragment in the bowl and removed it. This was in December 2019. In Rochdale Harpreet Kaur-Singh had binned a jar of Heinz Sunday chicken dinner and a jar of cheesy pasta stars after discovering metal while feeding her nine month old daughter. Impact Tesco was forced to issue a product recall of 42,000 jars after the contaminated jars were found in Lockerbie and Rochdale. Investigation The investigation was led by the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Units with the help of the National Crime Agency. It was the largest blackmail investigation in the UK, at times involving more than 100 officers with 30 officers watching CCTV around the clock. The Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland were also involved. Nigel Wright was spotted on CCTV from a Tesco in Lockerbie putting a tampered jar of baby food on a shelf before buying a bottle of wine, flowers for his wife and more baby food. Arrest On 25 February 2020 Nigel Wright was arrested at his family home outside Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. Police found photos of contaminated baby food on his laptop with jars identical to those found in Rochdale. They also found draft blackmail notes on his laptop. Suspect Nigel Wright was a sheep farmer and had been the youngest ever chairman of the Great Grimsby Conservative association at the age of 29. He had won an election to the Freshney Ward of North East Lincolnshire Council in 2003. In 2010 he joined UKIP. Trial Wright admitted to planting a tampered jar in Lockerbie but denied