DUBAI (Reuters) - At least 27 people have died and more than 300 poisoned after drinking bootleg alcohol in Iran, the state emergency services said on Sunday, in one of the worst such cases in the country where drinking is a crime.

Mojtaba Khaledi, spokesman for the state emergency services, said some 176 people were still hospitalized across five provinces, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported.

Despite a ban on alcohol for Iran’s majority Muslims and frequent police raids, bootleg alcohol is widely available.