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

On September 8, the Krasnoglinsky district Court of Samara began the debate of the parties in the case of mass poisoning with the drink "Mr. Cider" — its use in 2023 led to the death of 50 people in different regions of the country. Two businessmen, Anar Huseynov and Artyom Hayrapetyan, are on trial. According to investigators, they bought 4 thousand liters of alcohol, which was stolen from the warehouses of the Samara Ministry of Internal Affairs. As it turned out later, the alcohol contained toxic methanol. The prosecutor requested 9 years and 9 months in a general regime penal colony for both defendants. This is almost the maximum sanction provided for by law under the article on mass poisoning of people with surrogate alcohol, the lawyers explained.

How people got poisoned by cider

Producers of the Mr. Cider surrogate alcoholic drink, which caused 50 deaths from June 3 to September 20, may be sent to a penal colony for 9 years and 9 months. This period was requested by the prosecutor for defendants Anar Huseynov and Artyom Hayrapetyan during the arguments of the parties in the Krasnoglinsky court of Samara.

The poisonous "Mr. Cider" was sold in bottling in the Samara and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as in chain stores in Udmurtia. For some victims, even a small volume was enough to get to the intensive care unit. In total, according to the investigation, more than a hundred people were poisoned by the drink, 50 of them died.

Anar Huseynov, an individual entrepreneur and founder of Andi LLC, has been producing Mr. Cider since 2022 in the village of Vintai in the Samara region, the Investigative Committee reported. The drink was supplied to various regions of Russia.

In May 2023, two more defendants in the case, Dmitry and Alexey Egorov, together with police officer Ivan Grebenkin, stole six tons of methyl alcohol from the warehouse of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Samara region. It was stored there, as it had previously been seized by law enforcement officers during inspections. Grebenkin guarded the warehouse. The Egorovs sold the stolen alcohol to Artyom Hayrapetyan, who sold it to Anar Huseynov.

The alcohol was supplied under the guise of ethyl alcohol, but in fact it was poisonous methanol — they practically do not differ in color and smell.

From this liquid, they produced "Mr. Cider", which massively poisoned people. The examination showed the presence of methanol in the drink. According to the investigation, the manufacturers of cider deliberately refused to comply with the natural technology of making the drink. This is how they tried to reduce costs and production time.

After a series of poisonings, Rospotrebnadzor seized 66.5 thousand liters of "Mr. Cider" in 15 regions of the country. Its supplies were blocked throughout Russia.

Huseynov and Hayrapetyan were detained immediately after the emergency and charged with the production and sale of alcohol-containing products that do not meet safety requirements and negligently caused mass deaths (Part 3 of Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Egorov's father and son and former policeman Grebenkin were also detained. In February 2024, a court in Samara found all three guilty of alcohol theft (Part 3 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced them to terms ranging from 3 years and 3 months to 3 and a half years in a general and strict regime penal colony. The defendants admitted their guilt.

What the victims said

During the debate, the prosecutor asked the court to take into account the degree of public danger of the crime when imposing punishment — it is considered grave and directed against the health of the population.

"I ask you to consider the presence of minor children among the defendants as a mitigating circumstance,— the prosecutor said. — Given the exceptional severity of the consequences, I consider it necessary to impose a punishment close to the maximum for the defendants.

The relatives of the victims filed several lawsuits against the defendants for compensation for moral damage. A resident of Ulyanovsk, Rosa Ismetova, had her daughter die due to poisoning with "Mr. Cider". She demanded to recover 1 million rubles from the defendants.

Olga Krainova, a resident of Samara, also lost her daughter. The woman told Izvestia that she was supposed to turn 38 on June 5, 2023. We were going to celebrate my birthday in nature.

"While waiting for my son to return from college, my daughter drank a jar of cider," the woman said. — Then he calls and says: My blood pressure is dropping, I don't feel well, let's cancel the trip. After that, her phone went off, and I thought she was already asleep. My grandson stayed with me for the night, and in the morning I came running, but she was already blue all over.

Another victim, Tatiana Shvetsova from Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region, demanded compensation for the damage caused to her health, as the woman lay in intensive care for a long time. The dangerous toxin also affected my eyesight, which never fully recovered. Tatiana Shvetsova demanded to recover 5 million rubles from the defendants.

The total amount of claims filed by victims exceeds 46 million rubles. The defendants admitted all the claims. The prosecutor demanded to keep the arrest on the defendants' money accounts until the full execution of the sentence in terms of civil lawsuits.

Huseynov and Hayrapetyan pleaded partially guilty, they told the court that they did not know that the alcohol from which "Mr. Cider" was made contained methanol.

How long can the defendants get?

The prosecutor requested almost the maximum sanction for Huseynov and Hayrapetyan, according to the article on the production of dangerous alcohol, it reaches ten years in prison, Ilya Drozdov, a lawyer at the Moscow bar association Union of Lawyers, told Izvestia.

"Of course, if the accused are found guilty, the court will be obliged to take into account the nature of the consequences, namely the mass poisoning of people and the death of 50 people," the lawyer said. — In this case, the court may impose a maximum penalty on the accused.

The almost maximum term requested by the defendant is natural given the massive consequences associated with the death of people, Alexey Gavrishev, head of AVG Legal, told Izvestia. According to him, Article 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation implies a combination of intentional violation of product safety rules and careless attitude to the consequences.

"The fact that the defendants did not know about the presence of methanol in alcohol does not absolve them of responsibility," the lawyer noted. — In order to be involved in this article, the investigators do not need to prove that the defendants had the intention to poison people with methanol. It is enough that the products were unsafe, and the manufacturer or seller should have and could have ensured control of raw materials and quality, but did not do so.

The death toll does not directly affect the punishment — it will still not exceed 10 years in prison. But the actual scale of the tragedy affects the assessment of the aggravating circumstances, as well as the number of lawsuits filed by victims.

— In such cases, the request for prosecution and the appointment of a court usually tend to be the upper part of the punishment, — said the lawyer.

The defendants' ignorance about methanol cannot be considered by the court as a mitigating circumstance, since the key here is the failure of the defendants to comply with safety requirements, Ilya Drozdov added.

"If they had known about the presence of a deadly substance in their products, it would have been deliberate poisoning of people," the lawyer said. — And then they would have been tried for intentionally causing death and intentionally causing harm to health.

The time period requested by the prosecution, given the magnitude of the poisoning, adequately reflects the severity of the consequences of the crime, Ilya Drozdov summarized.