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Suspected Surrogate Alcohol Supplier Arrested in Irkutsk

TASS

Leninsky Court in Irkutsk has arrested a suspect who allegedly supplied surrogate alcohol to vendors throughout the city.

Court Spokeswoman Margarita Jafarova told the Interfax news agency that authorities have not yet found the manufacturer of the hawthorn berry bath lotion which led to mass poisoning in the city earlier this week.

Thirteen suspects in total have been detained in the poisoning case, mostly owners of kiosks that sold the lotion. Six of those are currently under house arrest. 

A state of emergency was declared by the mayor of Irkutsk after dozens of local residents became hospitalized with methanol poisoning. Later it was found that they had consumed hawthorn berry bath lotion, known in Russian as "boyaryshnik." 

Earlier on Friday Tatiana Shkurskaya, press secretary for the regional Ministry of Health, told Interfax that the death toll from poisoning reached 75, with another 19 hospitalized. 

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