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ocal authorities in the Thousand Islands have confiscated hundreds of candies and lollipops they mistakenly thought contained narcotic substances being sold by street vendors near elementary schools in the regency.

The Thousand Islands Police and Public Order Agency officers seized the Permen Jari (Candy Fingers) in an operation on Monday, after the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), apparently reacting to unfounded suspicions reported to it by some parents, indicated that a certain brand of candies sold to children might contain narcotics.

However, Tangerang’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) chief medical officer Lisa Puspitadewi confirmed on Tuesday that based on laboratory tests conducted by her agency, the candies were found to be free of any drugs.

“The results were that they did not contain narcotic substances,” she said.

The raid, which was undertaken in four schools in the region, shocked teachers and parents who had not heard that some candies sold to their children might have been laced with narcotics.

The street vendors who sold the candies also expressed shock, saying that they did not know the candies they sold might contain harmful substances. The candies in question come in different combinations of colors, making them attractive to children.

“Vendors selling such candies will only be told to stop selling them,” Thousand Islands Police chief Adj. Comr. Jajang Sukendar told reporters on Tuesday before the negative results came from the BPOM lab.

Separately, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiono said the police had also sent samples of the candies away for testing.

“We are investigating them. We will check if they really contain narcotic substances and if they do, what types of narcotics.” Awi explained before the BPOM announced its negative results.

Jajang said the candies were distributed by a company named PT Rizky Makmur but he did not reveal where the company was based.

Awi said the police were looking for the factory producing the candies and if the allegations had been true the police would have shut the factory down and charged the owner with a criminal offense.

Apparently, some parents became suspicious about the candies and reported them to the BNN when two students in Tangerang, Banten, reportedly slept for two days after eating one of them. The BPOM, however, was unable to contact the parents in question and the head of the agency’s food and harmful substances unit, Suratmo, said the BPOM did not receive any other reports from other parents.

“The BPOM went into the field to investigate the report. We were trying to learn if there were [complaints] in other places. Until today, there is no other such report received,” Suratmo said as quoted by kompas.com.

Suratmo said he did not know what might have caused the child to sleep for so long.

He also noted that the brand of the candies had actually been registered with the BPOM and said that if candies were registered with the agency that meant they had passed the agency’s tests and were safe to be consumed.

Suratmo added that scares about candies laced with narcotics had occurred in the past but they had never turned out to be true.