Charges laid as tainted alcohol kills at least 19 in Czech Republic
PRAGUE—Czech officials will keep a nationwide ban on hard-liquor sales for at least a “few” more days as police probe an illegal alcohol network after spirits laced with methyl-alcohol killed people across the country.
Concerns also spread to neighbouring Slovakia, which banned the import and sale of Czech spirits on Tuesday after at least 19 people died in the Czech Republic from drinking bootleg vodka and rum containing poisonous methanol.
The Slovak move followed a similar ban in Poland on Sunday and showed that Czech authorities have not been able to bring their biggest health scare in decades under control.
Police have charged 23 people with various crimes related to making and spreading poisonous substances after raiding 40 premises, Deputy Interior Minister Jaroslav Hruska said Tuesday.
The worst case of mass alcohol poisoning in 30 years forced the government to impose on Friday an indefinite ban on sales of hard liquor across the country as police and customs officers searched for the source of the contaminated beverages. While the measure locked about 20 million bottles of spirits in warehouses and hurt liquor makers and hospitality businesses, the government isn’t considering easing it for now, Health Minister Leos Heger told reporters in Prague.
“Declining profits, in the context of 19 and potentially more deaths, are a lower priority at this moment,” Heger said. Easing the ban “won’t be a matter for consideration in the next few days.”
The Health Ministry has 19 confirmed deaths caused by methanol, while police register 20 deaths and are awaiting autopsy results from five more cases, Stepanka Zatloukalova, a police spokeswoman, said Tuesday.
As many as 35 people have been hospitalized, with five new cases of poisoning occurring in the past 24 hours, Heger said.
Eight Slovaks were also taken to hospital in the eastern town of Presov on Sunday after drinking Czech-made spirits at a party.
Czech police have uncovered a chain of producers and distributors who supplied tainted drinks to retail outlets, bars and kiosks.
“The investigation conducted so far clearly shows that the cases are related,” police president Martin Cervicek said. “We have progressed to a group of people that may be related to organizers, or possibly to importers of the base material.”
The country’s spirits makers estimate up to 25 per cent of the alcohol in circulation is bootleg — often cheap vodka and rum made from industrial alcohol via a simple chemical process and sold under fake labels.
Police have been investigating how methanol got into the spirits. One theory is that it may come from windscreen wiper fluid, possibly from Poland.
Methanol can sometimes result from home distillation, common in the Czech Republic, if it is done clumsily, but the victims said they had purchased bottles at kiosks and stores.
The Czech ban is hurting the budget as the state collects about 750 million koruna ($40 million) a month in taxes from hard liquor sales, according to Ladislav Mincic, a deputy finance minister. A longer ban would “complicate” efforts to cut the budget gap, he said Sunday.
The tainted alcohol was sold in bottles under fake labels from at least two Czech liquor makers and the bottles weren’t properly sealed, according to police. The poisonous drink was offered at discounts in bottles labelled as vodka or tuzemak, a local rum-like alcoholic beverage. Several people went blind or fell into coma after consuming it.
With files from Reuters
