Dutch police are trying to trace a powerful paralyzing poison stolen from the vault of a museum of medicine in the Netherlands.

A jar of curare, a plant extract sometimes used in blow dart guns and on arrows, went missing on Wednesday morning from Leiden’s Boerhaave Museum, according to Omroep West news.

The stolen glass case contained a small dark block of the poison about the size of a sugar cube, reports Holland’s The Post Online.

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“We are now urgently looking for the poison,” a Leiden police spokesperson said. “It should not be on the street where people can come into contact with it.”

Museum director Amito Haarhuis said the toxic substance was being held in a safety deposit box before it was due to be destroyed. The museum was not prepared to put the poison on display because of its harmful nature. The muscle relaxant is used for euthanasia in Holland and is also used by native tribes for hunting.

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“We do not want anyone to touch this poison,” Haarhuis warned. “That is why we decided together with the police that we did not want to run any safety risk. We thought we had stored it safely, but we had not taken this into account.”

It’s understood that a cash sum was also taken by thieves in the Leiden raid.

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