Thirty-seven people have died in Istanbul since November 1 after drinking counterfeit liquor, the governor’s office said. Some 73 others were hospitalized over six weeks, and 17 were still being treated when the statement went out.
Police have detained 36 suspects accused of supplying the fake alcohol. Security forces seized 87,758 liters of alcoholic substances in recent raids across the city.
Why it keeps happening
Turkey has dealt with this for years, and cases tend to bunch up before New Year. The rise in bootleg production has been tied to higher government taxes on legal drinks. A liter of raki, the aniseed spirit, cost about 1,300 lira in legal shops in 2025, a heavy outlay next to the minimum wage. Illegal sellers undercut that price, often by using methanol in place of ethanol.
Methanol is unforgiving. Even a small amount of pure methyl alcohol can damage the optic nerves and cause blindness. It can also bring on paralysis, coma and respiratory failure.
Experts say the first signs arrive 10 to 24 hours after drinking: trouble with movement and balance, severe stomach pain and changes in vision.
Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu gave parliament a sense of the scale in reply to a question from Ömer Fethi Gürer, a deputy for the opposition Republican People’s Party. Between January 1, 2022, and October 31, 972 patients entered critical care units with methanol toxicity. Twenty of them were diagnosed with blindness or kidney failure within 72 hours.
The outbreak did not stop there. A later count put the toll from bootleg alcohol in Istanbul and Ankara at 160 dead by March 8, 2025, with 230 hospitalized. Authorities arrested 560 people and filed charges of “deliberate murder” against some suspects. The governor’s office said those behind the poison were “no different from the terrorists who kill people.”
Sources
- 2025 Istanbul alcohol poisonings – Wikipedia
- Tainted alcohol consumption kills 37 in Istanbul since Nov 1 – Türkiye News
