300,000 bottles of moonshine seized near Moscow

Moscow, May 10 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Over 300,000 bottles of moonshine have been discovered in a warehouse in the suburbs of Moscow, the ministry of interior affairs said Friday.

The bottles found are all counterfeit alcohol, labelled so they can be passed off as 20 different well-known brands of vodka, cognac and wine, police said.

"All the products are of dubious quality, and are stamped with special federal stamps with indications they are fake. The goods seized have an estimated value of about 30 million rubles (about $1 million)," a police statement read.

Samples of the alcohol have been sent for analysis, and police are working to identify where the alcohol was made, and by whom.

Counterfeit alcohol has been a problem for Russia in recent decades. Progress has been made, with the number of people who die each year from consuming illegal alcohol falling from about 45,000 in the early 2000s to about 12,000 in 2010, according to official statistics.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

pm/dg