At least 19 people have died this month from alcohol poisoning, eight of them from methanol, in the Slantsi district of the Leningrad region, in northwestern Russia, the regional government reported this Friday.
“According to the Health Committee of the Leningrad Region, 19 deaths from alcohol consumption were recorded in the Slantsi district during September. Of these, eight cases were laboratory-confirmed as methanol poisoning,” the official statement says.
Preliminary data indicate that the cause of the poisonings was the illegal production of alcohol and its commercialization.
The prosecutor’s office of the Leningrad region opened a criminal case under Article 109 of the Russian Criminal Code, which punishes the crime of causing death by negligence to two or more persons with up to 4 years in prison.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, a person has been arrested in connection with the case.
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The Slantsi district, one of the 17 that make up the Leningrad region, has a population of just over 40,000 inhabitants and borders Estonia.
