MOSCOW, February 29 An ex-policeman was sentenced in the Samara region to 3.5 years in prison for stealing six thousand liters of methyl from a warehouse alcohol that got into «Mr. Cider» and led to the death of more than 40 people, reports the Russian Prosecutor General's Office on the Telegram channel.
“A police officer who was guarding the warehouse of the Federal Public Institution “Center for Economic and Service Support of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Samara Region”, together with his friends, organized the theft of six thousand liters of alcohol… The court agreed with the opinion of the state prosecutor and sentenced the former policeman to three years six months of imprisonment to be served in a general regime correctional colony,” the department said in a statement.
It is clarified that the policeman, together with his accomplices, father and son, thought that ethyl alcohol was stored in the warehouse. Over the course of three weeks, on duty days, he allowed a truck into the warehouse several times so that his accomplices would pump the liquid into prepared empty containers and then take it out. “In fact, the object of the theft was methyl alcohol worth 102 thousand rubles,” the department noted.
His accomplices were sentenced to three years, three months and three years, six months in general and strict regime correctional colonies.
At the beginning of June 2023, in several regions of Russia, there were massive cases of poisoning with the Mister Cider drink, which the authorities associated with the use of a draft drink produced in Samara, sold under the guise of cider: according to the GUMVD for the Ulyanovsk region, an examination revealed dangerous impurities of methanol and ethyl butyrate. According to the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, 106 people were poisoned by the surrogate drink, 46 of them died, including one child.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation reported that in the course of identifying channels for the entry into illegal circulation of life-threatening alcoholic products sold under the brand name «Mr. Cider», the police established «the fact of theft of alcohol-containing liquid from the warehouse of the Federal Public Institution «Center for Economic and Service Support of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs» Russia in the Samara region.» The shipment was seized during inspection activities and was stored in a warehouse since 2012. For this, two residents of Samara and a police sergeant guarding the warehouse were detained and subsequently arrested.