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After consuming champagne from a three-litre bottle of Moët &Chandon, one person died in Weiden (Upper Palatinate), eight others were hospitalised. According to police investigations, the bottles were filled with the ecstasy substance MDMA instead of champagne. Shortly before, four people had suffered poisoning in a similar case in the Netherlands. According to the Federal Criminal Police Office, the large bottles were presumably prepared for smuggling the drugs. They were opened, the champagne inside removed, filled with MDMA and re-corked and sealed. As the Federal Criminal Police Office told the news agency dpa, organised drug dealers repeatedly tried to smuggle drugs, sometimes using "very unconventional methods". However, there were currently no findings that champagne bottles were deliberately used to transport MDMA in Europe.
However, liquid MDMA was already found in champagne bottles in Australia in 2018. Therefore, the police are currently investigating whether the consumers in Weiden and in the Netherlands might have been victims of aberrations of a larger drug deal.
Producer Moët Hennessy cooperates "fully" with the authorities and supports them in the investigation. The manipulated bottles of Moët & Chandon Ice Imperial were ordered by private persons on the internet. Moët Hennessy pointed out in a statement that liquid MDMA "neither looks like nor has the characteristics of champagne. It does not sparkle, has a reddish-brown colour and smells of aniseed. Even the smallest amounts could cause serious damage to health.
(al / Source: dpa; Photo: 123rf)