Dozens of Ukrainians died due to poisoned alcohol imported by Russian supplier
A Russian alcohol supplier has been implicated in the alcohol-poisoning deaths of 38 Ukrainian citizens, as the First Deputy Head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, Sergey Bilan, wrote on his Facebook page.
“We have identified the supplier of the methyl alcohol to the Kharkiv region which has killed 38 people. It was supplied from an enterprise in the Luhansk region, located in Severodonetsk. The enterprise also officially sells methanol and imports the products from the Russian Federation,” he stated.
According to Bilan, an employee of the company illegally sold, through an intermediary, over five tons of methanol which was later used to produce alcoholic drinks. It is alleged that the intermediary confessed.
The Deputy Head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine has not provided any further details on the Russian supplier. It was also not reported whether there are plans to coordinate a criminal investigation with Russian law enforcement agencies.
Three people are in pre-trial detention and another one is under house arrest. The newspaper Segodnya indicated that during the arrest more than four tons of methyl alcohol as well as production equipment were seized. Law enforcement officers are trying to prevent the alcohol from being sold to more people.
Since the 21st of September, 25 people have died in the Kharkiv region, and five more in both the Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions.