The issue has resurfaced in recent weeks amid a rising death toll in the Czech Republic, where 30 people have died from drinking a fake version of a local rum that was tainted with methanol. The poisonings have spread to Poland and Slovakia and so far, 50 people have been arrested in connection with the deadly liquor. Executives from Brown-Forman, Pernod Ricard and Diageo, three of the world's biggest spirits companies, all said that governments in developing countries need to do more to crack down on groups making fake versions of their products or illicitly selling homemade alcohol in black markets. "A third of the world's alcohol is estimated to come from what we call illicit production," said Paul Varga, CE of Brown-Forman told the Business Media. "It can be very dangerous to the point of being poisonous."
