Source of poisoned alcohol that killed British lawyer revealed after arrests
Police have arrested the owner of a factory in Laos thought to be the source of the methanol poisoning that killed six tourists – including a British woman.
The plant, outside the capital Vientiane is believed to have made the Tiger Vodka and Tiger Whiskey that they drank in the popular backpacker town of Vang Vieng.
Six foreigners – who were all staying at Nana Backpackers Hostel, died of methanol poisoning last month, and several more became ill.
Among them was 28-year-old British lawyer Simone White, from Orpington in Kent.
Australian best friends, Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both aged 19, also died, along with two Danish women, Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, and Frela Vennervald Sorensen, 21 and a US man, James Louis Hutson, 57.
Authorities have shut down the run down factory and banned the sale of Tiger Vodka and Tiger Whisky.
The Ministry of Health’s Department of Food and Drugs in Laos said the plant will not be allowed to operate and the drinks will remain banned ‘until the manufacturer improves the factory production process to ensure safety and quality according to standards’, ABC reported.
Photos show of the factory with blue plastic drapes covering piles of empty bottles next to remnants of a small fire outside.
Twelve people have been arrested by authorities so far in connection with the poisoning.
Two Indian men, aged 24 and 30, and a 35-year-old Filipino woman who was working at the hostel were arrested last week.
No one has yet been charged.
Simone’s mum, Sue White, spoke of the ‘horrendous’ 16-hour journey she took to Laos as her daughter’s life hung in the balance.
Sue, 61, said it was a ‘terrible, terrible journey’ from Heathrow via Thailand, knowing that her daughter was undergoing emergency brain surgery.
After receiving the phone call that Simone was in a critical condition, she said: ‘Call it a mother’s intuition — but I knew that she was going to die.’
Earlier she and Simone’s father paid tribute to their daughter, saying: ‘Simone was one of a kind and had the most wonderful energy and spark for life.
‘She was a soul who gave so much to so many and was loved by her family, friends and colleagues.’
Simone was a lawyer with global law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
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