A group of friends in Mérida’s colonia Maya decided to go buy clandestine liquor after work. They had a few and then they returned to their homes. The following day they “repeated the operation”, but this time with the difference that each of the three employees took home two bottles of adulterated liquor with them.
On Sunday May 17, one died at the Dr. Agustín O’Horán Hospital; another died Monday 18, while a third one is hospitalized in very serious condition, so the worst is expected at any time. A fourth person was also hospitalized and in the end, he died too.
Mrs. Margarita del Rosario Ac Canché calls for attention to the general population and denounces the man known as “Ballena” as the person who sold the tainted alcohol to her husband and two other people who have already died.
Doña Margarita points out that due to the pandemic most people is out of work, but her husband Rosendo de Jesús Nah Canté, her brother-in-law Marcelino Cauich Bojórquez and his brother, William Cauich Bojórquez, were fortunate enough to have a job in these difficult times. But they decided to go buy liquor from a man known as “Ballena”, whose house is located on Calle 15 Colonia Maya, in Mérida, Yucatan.
Once there they were given several liqueurs to try and decide which one they wanted, they bought a bottle and drank it there, and then returned to their homes.
The next day, Saturday, May 9th, they did exactly the same, they went to work and then they went to “Ballena’s” to drink liquor, and then they left, but not before buying two bottles each, so they returned to their homes at 5 pm.
Later that day, Marcelino started feeling an excrutiating pain, so they took him to the hospital. Then, at five in the morning on Sunday, his cousin called the family to tell them that Marcelino had died at 4 in the morning.
Don Rosendo did not have any symptoms, headache or anything, so his wife Margarita told him that this man had to be accused of selling adulterated liquor, which led to the death of Marcelino, who left his wife a widow along with his two young daughters.
However, he refused to accuse the man because he did not want to get in trouble, the couple argued and Mr. Rosendo left the house, went to see the wife of William Cauich Bojórquez to tell him that he had also drank with them.
And that’s when Rosendo learned that a woman who bought alcohol from the same man, had passed away and his son was in the Hospital for unknown reasons. And then, he found out that another person who was drinking along with them that day, was also in the hospital.
Before being admitted to the hospital’s emergency room William Cahuich declared that he had drank liquor at Ballena’s, and hours later he died too.
Rosendo started feeling sick on Sunday at 6 in the morning. He was taken in an ambulance to the hospital because he could no longer see, he was shaking, he could not breathe well and had tachycardia.
The doctor who treated him at the hospital told doña Margarita that her husband Rosendo was very serious and to prepare to expect the worst. She has two children with her husband, and she also works to help to pay the rent and other expenses.
She asks that anybody who have been affected by the adulterated liquor sold by this man known as “Ballena” to denounce him, so that his crime does not go unpunished.
Doña Margarita does not know if she will ever see her husband alive again, and if he dies she will not even be able to say goodbye, because now all bodies are being cremated immediately (as they did with Marcelino), whose wife could not say goodbye to him either.
The number of deaths from drinking adulterated alcohol rose to 6, as two more people, including a woman, who were admitted to the IMSS Ignacio García Téllez Hospital, better known as T-1, and to the Regional Hospital of High Specialty , also died after being intoxicated.
The authorities have not yet carried out the removal of the bodies for the legal proceedings, as the cases are being investigated to find the person or persons responsible.
