Surrogate alcohol poisoning in Russia's Orenburg: 34 die

In the Orenburg region of Russia, investigators opened eight more criminal files into the case of fatal alcohol poisoning.

According to Svetlana Petrenko, an official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia, investigators established the involvement of new persons in the crime, and the total number of defendants thus increased to 15 people. Eight of them have already been taken into custody.

In the house of one of the organizers of illegal business, police officers found over 1.8 million rubles. The Investigative Committee of Russia has filed 14 criminal cases into the incident of mass alcohol poisoning in the Orenburg region.

"The suspects purchased one of the types of industrial alcohol under the name of 'technical inhibitor', which, among other things, is used in the manufacture of anti-corrosion compounds,” the press service of the Investigative committee said.

Earlier it was reported that the spirit, which caused the poisoning of 67 people in the Orenburg region, was used to produce anti-corrosion agents. The suspects purchased the spirit for the production of surrogate alcohol from a company in Ufa, which sells technical fluids.

The mass poisoning of people with surrogate alcohol in the Orenburg region of Russia was reported on October 7. In total, 67 people were affected, 34 of whom died.