One dead, eight seriously ill from € 500 champagne contaminated with ecstasy in German bar (photos)

Some of the group of friends had started foaming shortly after drinking the expensive drink, which was mixed with a fatal amount of MDMA drug otherwise known as ecstasy, authorities announced today.

German police said the group had ordered and then consumed the bottle of champagne together, although from questioning they could not confirm all the drinks consumed before Saturday’s serious incident.

The incident at the Bavarian bar involved people between the ages of 33 and 52, as media reports suggested that a large concentration of ecstasy drugs was found in bottles but it has not yet been revealed how it ended up there.

The man who died in Weiden was 52 years old, said the German agency Dpa, and has been named by the media as ‘Harald Georg Z’.

Police said they are not currently looking for other suspects.

The group ordered a bottle of champagne after finishing a performance in the television program of new acquaintances ‘Take Me Out’, writes the British Mail Onlineadding that some had suffered epileptic seizures and foaming at the mouth.

The media said the three-liter bottle contained about 1,000 times the ‘normal’ dose of the drug.

When the police came at the scene he found people lying on the ground in the La Vita bar with severe abdominal cramps, and eight of them were to be taken to hospital.

Prosecutor Gerd Schaefer said the toxicological texts showed significant amounts of the drug.

He said it was not yet known how the drug ended up in the drink bottle but added: “There were ingredients that normally should not be found in champagne, they had a severe toxic, poisonous effect.”

Footage from the scene showed the bar surrounded by police tapes and an analysis tent set up outside it.

A dead man and eight seriously ill people yesterday in a bar in Germany had consumed a bottle of champagne contaminated with the drug ‘ecstasy’.