“It was a bar in an upscale area, it wasn’t a corner bar, I drank three red fruit caipirinhas with passion fruit and vodka, since then I’ve been blind”, said Radharani Domingos, designer interior designer, 43 years old, who was celebrating a birthday in an establishment in Jardins, a high-end neighborhood in São Paulo, on TV Globo’s Fantástico program. She is one of 24 cases of poisoning by methanol, a type of poisonous alcohol, already confirmed in Brazil. There are 235 more under investigation. Five people died, 11 other deaths are under analysis.
“Ethyl alcohol turns into acetic acid in the liver, that is, vinegar, just leave a bottle of wine open and it will end up with that horrible vinegar taste, while methyl alcohol becomes formic acid when it reaches the liver and then attacks the central nervous system, causing blindness and death”, explains to DN Rogério Machado, professor of Chemistry at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie and Faculdade Saint Bernard.
Regarding the causes of the crisis, the academic ventures a hypothesis. “I have no proof, of course, but I have experience with methanol for 30 years, someone, a humane criminal organization, after the police recently discovered the adulteration of fuel with methanol in a police operation, may have thought of sending it into the drink…”.
The Brazilian Federal Police, in fact, says that it does not rule out this line of investigation because the cases occurred shortly after such an operation at the end of August against a multimillion-dollar organized crime scheme in the fuel sector. “We had a huge action to combat the infiltration of organized crime in the fuel sector and many methanol tanks were abandoned after the operation, this is a possibility”, said Ricardo Lewandowski, Lula’s Minister of Justice.
Nonetheless, the Civil Police of São Paulo, the Brazilian state that accounts for more than 80% of cases, works with other hypotheses: either methanol was used to sanitize reused bottles that ended up not being recycled or there was criminal use of pure ethanol to increase the volume of counterfeit drinks without knowing that the product was contaminated with methanol.
The Criminalistics Institute of the Scientific Police of São Paulo stated that the examination of bottles seized in bar inspections indicated that the methanol concentrations found are not the product of natural distillation – they were added. On the other hand, the Civil Police found more than 100,000 empty bottles in a clandestine warehouse in the east zone of São Paulo.
“The bottle consumed instead of going for recycling is purchased on the underground market and facilitates counterfeiting”, said Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), governor of the state of São Paulo, appointed as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic in 2026 against Lula da Silva (PT).
For Guilherme Derrite (PP), Tarcísio’s public security secretary, the hypothesis of organized crime being involved “is ruled out”. “Organized crime aims for profit and the profit is exponential in drug trafficking, in drinking it is infinitely inferior, I would not migrate to a less profitable business”.
Tarcísio’s Coca-Cola
The difference of opinion regarding the causes was just one facet of the political dispute between the federal and state governments that the crisis generated. On another point, a joke by Tarcísio, considered the dauphin of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), generated outrage on the left. “The day they start counterfeiting Coca-Cola, I will worry”he joked.
Paulo Teixeira (PT), Minister of Agrarian Development, called the statement “a mockery of all the victims, their families and the damage caused by this criminal action”, he wrote on social media.
Federal deputy Guilherme Boulos (PSol), who could become Lula’s minister in the next reshuffle, compared Tarcísio’s statement to one made by Bolsonaro during the Covid-19 pandemic: “So what? I’m not a gravedigger…”, said the then president at the time.
“There are São Paulo people losing their vision, their lives or suffering serious damage to their health due to this crisis in our state but Tarcísio’s focus is, for some reason, to deny the involvement of organized crime and make fun of the victims’ suffering”added deputy Erika Hilton, also from the leftist PSOL.
Afterwards, Tarcísio asked for “forgiveness” for the “inappropriate” phrase.
Portugal helps
To combat methanol poisoning, the most effective method is the antidote medozipolsaid Alexandre Padilha, Minister of Health of Brazil, who announced the acquisition of 2500 packages from the USA and Japan. The Portuguese government, however, already donated 36 ampoules last Tuesday, the 7th.
On the other hand, according to research by an association of bars in São Paulo, 26% of establishments have already seen a drop in revenue, especially those that depend on the sale of spirits.
And young people from São Paulo, says a newspaper report Folha de S. Paulotook advantage of the crisis to “not drink until a safer scenario is designed”. Coincidentally, In some parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom and the USA, there is already a movement called “Go Sober for October” [fique sóbrio em outubro]” to raise awareness about the harms of alcohol.