19 Killed in Bootleg Alcohol Poisoning in Russia’s Leningrad Region
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
19 Killed in Bootleg Alcohol Poisoning in Russia’s Leningrad Region
At least 19 people have died this month after consuming bootleg alcohol in Russia’s Leningrad region. Two local residents were detained on suspicion of supplying raw alcohol and using it to produce homemade spirits.
National police spokeswoman Irina Volk said two local residents were detained on suspicion of supplying raw alcohol and using it to produce homemade spirits.
“A resident of the village of Gostitsy is suspected of selling alcohol-containing liquid to fellow villagers,” Volk wrote of the first detainee on Telegram.
“A little later, his acquaintance from a neighboring village, who had allegedly sold raw alcohol to the pensioner, was detained,” she added.
The Leningrad region’s administration said at least 19 deaths have been registered across the southwestern Slantsevsky district in September.
At least seven people die in Russia after drinking bootleg alcohol, ministry says
At least seven people have died in Russia’s northwest Leningrad region after they drank bootleg alcohol. Three others were being treated for poisoning. A resident of the town of Gostitsy, near the Estonian border, had been arrested on suspicion of selling the alcohol.
A resident of the town of Gostitsy, near the Estonian border, had been arrested on suspicion of selling the alcohol to fellow villagers, an interior ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
The Telegram channel 112 put the death toll at 12 and said that the bootlegger’s wife had been admitted to hospital in a serious condition after trying her husband’s product.
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Russia tightened controls on the production and sale of alcohol after 77 people in Siberia died after drinking cheap moonshine in 2016, but the consumption of homemade alcohol remains a serious problem.
In June 2023, at least 30 people died in multiple regions across western Russia after drinking adulterated cider.
Industry experts say rising retail alcohol prices and growing regional restrictions on its sale have seen some people turn to homemade brews with sometimes deadly consequences.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy PapachristouEditing by Andrew Osborn)