More than 100 people have been poisoned after drinking fake alcohol at a tourist destination. Turkey has issued a national warning after poisoning cases keep cropping up.
So far 103 people have died from poisoning in two of its major cities in 2025. The poisonings have happened in Ankara and Istanbul, both popular among tourists. People are selling fake alcohol, disguising it as real brands, and passing it off to unsuspecting victims. Since January, 70 people died in Istanbul and 33 people have died in Ankara.
That’s just the deaths. There have been far more who have been injured and hospitalized. More than 230 people have been hospitalized with 40 people ending up in the ICU. So why all of the fake alcohol in the city? Well, it all is due to rising prices of alcohol in the country. Prices have spiked in the country due to taxation on liquor.
President Tayyip Erdogan placed high taxes on alcohol, citing Islamic religious practices that view alcohol as a sin. As a result, alcohol manufacturers have struggled to survive in the country. Restrictions have led to people try to find new ways around the taxes. Instead, consumers have increasingly turned to bootleg liquor to get their fix. They’ve also began passing bootleg liquor off as a genuine thing.
As such, the number of spiked cases and poisonings has grown as fake alcohol has. To combat this, Turkey announced that it was going to be performing mandatory inspections. It was also going to increase the number of security cameras at shops selling liquor to crack down on the selling of fake alcohol.
Police have also started cracking down on the sales, arresting several. So far into the new year, they’ve arrested 13 people in Ankara and 11 in Istanbul. They also seized 102 tons of methanol and ethanol as well, plus 86,000 liters of fake alcohol. In Turkey, it sounds very much like the Prohibition times. The country will continue to struggle with poisonings as long as alcohol remains high in price and people seek out alternatives.