The court passed a verdict in the case of mass poisoning with cider. What you need to know

Entrepreneurs Anar Huseynov and Artyom Hayrapetyan, whose products caused the deaths of 50 people, were sentenced by the Samara court to 9 and 8 years in a penal colony. The investigation lasted for two years and led to the disclosure of another crime — the theft of physical evidence from the warehouse of the Samara police. What is known about the case of the cider poisoners is in the Izvestia article.

The trial of entrepreneurs

• On September 22, Anar Huseynov, the founder of Andi LLC, and his accomplice Artyom Hayrapetyan, who produced the Mr. Cider drink, were found guilty under Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (production, storage and transportation for marketing purposes, as well as the sale of products that do not meet the requirements of consumer safety and health, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement, which negligently resulted in the death of two or more persons). The defendants admitted partial guilt and denied the fact of conspiracy. The prosecutor's office requested 9 years and 9 months of imprisonment for the merchants. However, the court sent one of the merchants to a general regime colony for nine years, the other for eight. In addition, they were ordered to pay damages to the victims.

Poison at home: producers of "Mr. Cider" were asked for almost 10 years in prison

In 2023, 50 people died after drinking this surrogate alcohol.

• In 2023, Huseynov and Hayrapetyan organized the production of cider under the brands "Mr. Cider" and "Summer cider" at the private brewery "Varka" in the Samara village of Vintai. To speed up and reduce the cost of production, they abandoned the technology of making a drink by natural fermentation and began mixing ready-made alcohol with apple juice. At the same time, the natural composition was declared on the labels of the finished products.

• The investigation found that Artyom Hayrapetyan purchased at least 4,000 liters of alcohol without any documents confirming its origin, and illegally supplied it to Anar Huseynov for the production of cider. As it turned out, the alcohol contained deadly methanol, which later led to the poisoning of 116 people. 50 of them died.

Stolen methanol

• During the investigation, law enforcement officers established the theft of alcohol-containing liquid with methanol from the warehouse of the Center for Economic and Service Support of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Samara region. The batch of methanol seized during the raids had been stored in a warehouse since 2012 and was to be destroyed.

• It turned out that the theft of counterfeit alcohol was carried out by former policeman Ivan Grebenkin, who was on duty at the warehouse, and the Egorov family — father and son. In total, the criminals managed to take away about 6 thousand liters of "burnt" alcohol from the warehouse, most of which was sold to Hayrapetyan.

• The participants in the criminal scheme were sentenced in February 2024: the former policeman and Alexey Egorov were sentenced to terms of up to 3 years and 6 months in a general regime colony, and Egorov's son Dmitry was sent to a maximum-security colony for 3.5 years. According to the convicts, they did not suspect that they were selling methanol. By the time of sentencing, the number of victims of alcoholic beverages had increased to 46 people.

Poisoning with cider

• Reports of the first hospitalized after poisoning with the drink "Mr. Cider" appeared on June 3, 2023 in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region. Later, the victims were identified in other regions. By June 9, more than 30 deaths from the use of "Mr. Cider" had been recorded in the Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Ulyanovsk regions, cases of poisoning were reported in the Penza and Kurgan regions, Udmurtia and Chuvashia.

• On June 5, all shipments of goods from the Samara-based Andi company, which produced alcoholic beverages Mr. Cider and Leto Cider, were blocked, the company's founder, Anar Huseynov, was detained, and Rospotrebnadzor began seizing dangerous products from stores. A total of 66.5 thousand liters of cider were seized, and more than 17 thousand liters were found in the Andi warehouse. The entrepreneur managed to supply most of the products to the Astrakhan and Kurgan regions and Udmurtia. But Mr. Cider was also supplied to other regions: drinks were found in the Vladimir, Ryazan, Volgograd regions, the republics of Crimea, Mordovia, Komi and Mari El, as well as in the Perm Region.