CZECH POLICE have arrested 23 people in connection with a spate of alcohol poisoning that has killed at least 21 people and prompted the government to ban the sale of all hard liquor.
The 23 suspects have been charged with producing and distributing poisonous substances, and police are searching for more members of a network that put methanol into bottles marketed under fake labels as popular Czech brands of vodka and rum.
As well as the 21 confirmed victims of methanol poisoning, autopsies are being carried out to discover whether several other recent deaths in the Czech Republic were caused by the worst such incident to hit the country in decades.
The government has banned the sale of all drinks containing more than 20 per cent alcohol until the source of the poisoning is discovered and all dangerous products have been removed from shops, bars and restaurants. Some 20 million bottles are already in storage in Czech warehouses.
About 40 people who drank the tainted alcohol are receiving treatment in hospitals around the country.
Several are seriously ill, some have fallen into a coma and others have lost their sight.
“I believe it was from one source,” deputy police chief Vaclav Kucera said of the poisonous spirits.
“We have moved on from retailers, who sometimes also contaminated the drinks themselves, to dealers, who were in some cases also the producers, and we are getting to the supplier of the raw materials.”
At least four people from neighbouring Slovakia are being treated in hospital after consuming imported Czech liquor, and Poland has banned the import of strong drinks from the Czech Republic.
Polish health officials said yesterday that five people had died and four others had received medical attention in the past fortnight after drinking bootleg liquor. However, they said there was no evidence linking those cases to the Czech poisonings.
