Czech inspectors find 7600 poisonous rum bottles in store

The poisonous alcohol might have killed thousands of people, Kopriva said.

The bottles had Tuzemak, a cheap Czech rum, labels of the Drak liquor producer. Verdana is the exclusive distributor of Drak in the Czech Republic.

Pavel Caniga, representative of Drak, said he cannot understand it. He said CTK broke the news to him on the allegedly poisonous spirits. He said he has no information on the case.

Caniga pointed out that he considers it an attack against Drak.

Kopriva said the inspection handed the case to the police and customs administration. The Verdana stores were sealed, he added.

Police spokeswoman Jana Macalikova said detectives are checking whether the Verdana stores were linked to the storage area in Opava, north Moravia, which was the source of the poisonous bootleg alcohol that killed 28 people in the past six weeks.

Several dozen of people are prosecuted within the methanol poisoning case, unparalleled disaster in modern Czech history. Two men who produced the lethal methanol mixture and the main producer have been charged and they may end up in prison for 20 years or even longer.

Macalikova said an anonymous person pointed to the Verdana store, in which 56,360 litres of spirits were found. The bottles and six-litre containers did not have a production number and no documents proving the origin of the alcohol and the production date were available.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz