It was a plot that would have been completely at home in a hardly credible airport thriller.
A dissatisfied ex-poor medicine issues threats through hair-raising phone calls, before the police turn to unorthodox methods and innovative technology to stop him.
But this is what actually happened 30 years ago in the Less James Bond and more MR Bean institutions from Tesco -Supermarkten in Kettering and Dudley.
Weeks before the launch of Tesco's ClubCard-Loyality Scheme In February 1995, Italian worked an ingenious but frightening way in Frank Riolfo to demand £ 250,000 from the supermarket.
He first injected products with black ink and then warned that he would do the same with his own 'infected' blood after he claimed that he had deadly HIV.
In what turned out to be a remarkable coincidence – because ClubCard was still top secret – Riolfo demanded that Tesco launched a loyalty schedule with a special card with which he could withdraw cash.
They had to send him the pin code for his card – together with other messages – using encrypted classified advertisements in a national newspaper, while Riolfo hid his identity with the bizarre pseudonym of 'St Mary Anne'.
It is remarkable that customers in the Dudley store in the West Midlands could also get a new club card because of the plot of Riolfo, but none of them would have known that their pieces plastic had the secret cash-to-trewing capacity.
Weeks before the launch of Tesco's ClubCard-Loyality Scheme In February 1995, Italian worked out an ingenious but frightening way in Frank Riolfo to demand £ 250,000 from the supermarket
Before he was finally caught by the police in April 1995 and then imprisoned, Riolfo used his special card – which had £ 25,000 – 73 times to withdraw in a conspiracy that the judge would admit during his trial that it was a ' was a brilliant idea '.
The former Lance Corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps was not convicted of crimes before launching his blackmail schedule.
Riolfo's Mugshot as it appeared in the Daily Mail in October 1995
During his trial to the Crown Court of Northhampton, jury members heard that he saw his life as a 'full failure' and had turned to crime after the failure of his small company had left him with enormous debts.
He got the idea to force Tesco to give him a card after using his credit card at a gas station and realized that it could be 'changed', his lawyer said.
Riolfo – who cropped his wife Valerie in his plan – launched his blackmail attempt on January 13, 1995.
With his religious pseudonym, Riolfo called the manager in the Tesco store in Kettering, Northhamptonshire, to warn them that he had contaminated food there.
A thorough search showed that a bag of frozen peas and a lot of butterfly shrimp with black ink was injected.
Days later, a letter arrived at the security department of the Tesco headquarters. The letter was: 'As you know now, the food was infected with peninkt.
The front page -story of the Daily Mail on October 14, 1995
Two of the advertisements placed by the police in the Times newspaper to communicate with Riolfo, who believed that he only spoke to Tesco. Above: the first advertisement (left), posted on January 25, 1995, read: 'Give blessings to St Mary-Anne. We want to heal your illness. But there are problems, call Michael Jenkins at the head office. 'The second advertisement, which Riolfo gave the pin code for his special card, was:' Had a great time last night. Ring me for another date on 105138, love Mick '
'I am completely willing to expand my actions unless my requirements have been met. I have AIDS, so I have a ready-made stock of infected blood. '
Riolfo then told Tesco to set up a promotional discount scheme with a map of the credit type in the store in Dudley.
It was pure coincidence that Tesco was about to launch ClubCard.
A huge operation to detect Riolfo was then on the road, involving hundreds of police officers of Northhamptonshire.
Riolfo ordered the supermarket to communicate with him via classified advertisements in the Times -Krant. They agreed, but it turned out to be the police who placed the advertisements.
The first advertisement, posted on January 25, 1995, was: 'Give blessings to St Mary-Anne.
“We want to heal your illness. But there are problems, call Michael Jenkins at the head office. '
A few days later another advertisement was placed. It said: 'St Mary-Anne, there are technical problems. Please contact Michael Jenkins. '
Riolfo was then agitated and threatened to go to the media to tell the nation that he had poisoned food.
He also led that he would use battery acid or corrosive soft drinks in a different attack.
He then struck again – this time some meat injected with a fabric before leaving the syringe.
In Panic, Tesco officials were torn apart between announcing the threat to the public or the silence remain. They did not want to activate a series of copycat -crimes.
The advertisements were placed in the 'personal column' of the Times newspaper
According to BBC Podcast Series Bad People, Tesco finally chose to become public and, as they feared, Copycat criminals strike.
The police then devised a plan to use Riolfo's card idea against him. Because Tesco was about to launch ClubCard, they theoretized that they could spend cards in the Dudley store without giving suspicions.
So cards were spent in a 'test' and all had the opportunity to withdraw cash, but no one else knew the pin code.
A Times advertisement posted on 28 February revealed the number of Riolfo. It read: 'Cat Balou,
'Had a great time last night. Ring me for another date at 105138, love Mick. '
Barclays were also on the plot. They agreed to place £ 25,000 in an account where the Riolfo map would have access.
As soon as it was loaded in a money machine, the police would know.
But the problem now came to where Riolfo was before he left
He and his wife attracted dozens of times in places in the entire country.
Now that ClubCard has now been rolled out nationally, Tesco conceived a way to finally tie Riolfo.
They decided to intentionally take a cash machine the special club card from Riolfo, forcing it back to a Tesco store to get a new one.
They used another classified advertisement to tell him to go to their store in Eesham in Worcestershire, where they had spent some coded cards.
On the better CCTV of the store, they got on what Riolfo would prove to be suspected – it was their first sight of the criminal.
They then arrested Riolfo with his wife in April, just after she had recorded cash from An Am in Slough.
It turned out that Riolfo's wife had been one of the shoppers who had picked up a club card in Dudley on the day they were released.
She had registered with her own name.
When Riolfo was questioned, he admitted everything. Officer of Justice Joan Butler said in court: 'He could hardly have been cooperative anymore.
“He said he had mentioned AIDS for pure panic value. He said he wanted to give Tesco the impression that he had resentment against them and that they owed him something.
An advertisement from 1999 for ClubCard. The scheme was launched in February 1995
“He said he was the only one and his wife had known nothing.
Riolfo admitted two counts of Chantage and was imprisoned for eight years. The punishment was then reduced on appeal.
The charges against his wife were fired. Tesco was the moment the requirements of Riolfo and the launch of club card 'Pure Cover of Coincidence'.
A spokesperson added that all encrypted cards had since been recalled.
A Tesco spokesperson told MailOnline this week: 'Tesco launched Tesco ClubCard to give our customers great value and rewards after more than two years of dedicated insight and research – and today, three decades later, it is used by more than 23 million households.
“The decision to launch is completely independent of this issue.”
Before Tesco introduced Clubcard, loyalty schemes were largely the domain of airlines. The schedule was initially mocked by rivals before they followed.
Sainsbury's finally launched his similar Nectar schedule in 2002.
