[3] On the night of 6 September 2001, 10 200-litre canisters of methanol, totalling 1.6 tonnes, were stolen from Baltfett (a company processing industrial fats, esters and animal feed) by Deniss Pletškin, a former employee and Robert Petrov, a current employee, on order of Sergei Maistrišin.
To cover up the theft, Petrov later replaced the stolen canisters with empty ones.
Sobolev mixed the liquid with water and lemon flavouring agents at about 30% by volume, bottled the resulting liquid, attached fake labels of various well-known vodka brands, and distributed it through an underground network.
Beginning on 9 September, hundreds of people consumed the resulting product and suffered methanol poisoning.
The unexpectedly lenient sentencing aroused considerable discussion in Estonian public arena, and led to decline in underground alcohol sales.