affiliates. The other four members eventually surrendered to the authorities. In May 1975, several British intelligence reports circulated that stated that the RAF had stolen mustard gas from a joint U.S. and British storage facility. The reports also indicated that the RAF had intended to use the stolen gas in German cities. It eventually turned out that the mustard gas canisters were merely misplaced; however, the RAF still successfully capitalized on the news by frightening several different agencies. In the 1970's, the RAF was involved in several raids, taking advantage of Switzerland’s loosely guarded military armories. According to the source, the group was involved in the theft of 200 Swiss rifles, 500 revolvers, and 400 large grenades. During the early 1980s, German and French newspapers reported that the police had raided an RAF safe house in Paris and had found a makeshift laboratory that contained flasks full of Clostridium botulinum, which makes botulinum toxin. These reports were later found to be incorrect; no such lab was ever found. German Autumn On 30 July 1977, Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank, was shot and killed in front of his house in Oberursel in a botched kidnapping. Those involved were Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar, and Susanne Albrecht, the sister of Ponto's goddaughter. Following the convictions, Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former officer of the SS who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany), was abducted in a violent kidnapping. On 5 September 1977, Schleyer's convoy was stopped by the kidnappers reversing a car into the path of Schleyer's vehicle, causing the Mercedes in which he was being driven to crash. Once the convoy was stopped, five masked assailants immediately shot and killed three policemen and the driver and took Schleyer hostage. One of the group (Sieglinde Hofmann) produced her weapon from a pram she was pushing down the road. A letter was then received by the federal government, demanding the release of eleven detainees, including those in Stammheim. A crisis committee was formed in Bonn, headed by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, which, instead of acceding, resolved to employ delaying tactics to give the police time to discover Schleyer's location. At the same time, a total communication ban was imposed on the prison inmates, who were now allowed visits only from government officials and the prison chaplain. The crisis dragged on for