In the Samara region, law enforcement officers are looking for persons involved in the manufacture of surrogate apple cider, the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs reported. According to media reports, we are talking about two individual entrepreneurs who worked in the same production.
80 people in several regions of the country have already suffered from the drink, 30 of them have died. Most of the victims are in the Ulyanovsk region - 20 people died there, seven in the Samara region, two in Nizhny Novgorod, and one in Udmurtia.
Samples of seized drinks were sent to the ECC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Ulyanovsk region for physical and chemical research. According to the results of 14 examinations, impurities of methanol and ethyl butyrate were found in liquids in proportions that pose a threat to human life and health.
A criminal case has been opened on the fact of poisoning people on the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements, resulting in the death of two or more persons through negligence (Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
On June 6, the chairman of the Investigative Committee instructed to transfer the case to the main investigation department of the TFR "for the purpose of the most objective and comprehensive further investigation."
According to preliminary data, all the victims consumed drinks from the same manufacturer under the brand name "Mr. Sidr", which were bought in retail stores of draft beer. The product label states that it is a beer drink.
At the moment, one suspect has been detained - an individual entrepreneur from the Samara region. According to RT, we are talking about 32-year-old Anar Huseynov, the owner of Andi LLC. The micro-enterprise has been producing cider and fruit wines since 2021. At the same time, last summer, Huseynov was already brought to administrative responsibility for the illegal trade in cider.
Then the court found that the entrepreneur distributed alcoholic beverages without accompanying documents certifying the legality of production and turnover. The man was fined 10 thousand rubles, but since he committed such an offense for the first time, the court replaced the fine with a warning.
The investigation has already established that Huseynov's company was involved in the poisoning of people in at least two regions.
"According to the investigation, the detainee carried out the production of alcoholic beverages in the village of Vintai, Krasnoglinsky district of the Samara region, and then delivered the goods to retail outlets in the territories of the Samara and Ulyanovsk regions," the TFR reported.
So far, the investigation has not established what kind of substance the consumers were poisoned with. According to preliminary data, in the composition of the drink instead of ethyl alcohol, which is considered food, there could be methanol, which is extremely toxic to the human body.
Alcohol is easy to confuse
The Federal Service for Alcohol Regulation (RAR) has completely blocked the shipment and supply of Mister Sidr products from Andi LLC throughout the country.
In several regions of Russia, they are looking for and seizing batches of surrogate alcohol, which have already been sent to retail stores.
In the Ulyanovsk region, the police, following the results of an inspection of stores, seized more than 5 thousand liters with suspicious contents.
In the Samara region, additional patrols are on duty on the roads: traffic police officers check cars that can carry dangerous cider. Earlier in the region, a truck had already been stopped on the highway, the driver of which had a consignment note for receiving 18 thousand liters of alcoholic beverages under the brand name "Mr. Sidr".
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, the police seized a batch of dangerous alcohol from a wholesale warehouse. Two people died in the region, several more people were in intensive care, doctors are fighting for their lives. The Minister of Health of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, David Melik-Huseynov, said that, according to preliminary data from experts, ethylene glycol could be in the cider. This alcohol is used for the production of brake fluid, it is poisonous to humans.
In the Penza region, the police seized from sale 1.7 thousand liters of low-alcohol drink "Mr. Sidr". According to the regional Investigative Committee, three local girls suffered from the surrogate, two of them are minors. All of them survived.
A dangerous drink could get to Moscow: the metropolitan department of Rospotrebnadzor, together with the police, identifies establishments in which cider can be sold.
Evgeny Demidov, a Samara brewing expert and organizer of the SAMARA CRAFT FEST 2021 beer festival, in an interview with RT, noted that the cost of Mr. Sidr drinks in retail stores was much lower than the cost of real apple cider.
"Cider is a product of the fermentation of apple juice. If you produce cider from ready-made concentrated juice, then the cost will be higher than what is sold in our stores. Obtaining the necessary concentrate is a complex process. I assume that the company did everything primitively: they boiled sugar syrup, added flavoring and ethyl alcohol. This is a cocktail that is generally prohibited by law, "the source said.