Six people who died 'foaming at the mouth' in five-star luxury Thai hotel were poisoned by drinks laced with cyanide
17 July 2024, 08:04 | Updated: 17 July 2024, 08:50
Six people who died in the suite of luxury five-star hotel in Thailand were poisoned by drinks laced with cyanide, police have confirmed.
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The six deceased were found dead by housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the capital Bangkok late on Tuesday.
Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by debt.
Investigators believe they had been dead for 24 hours by then, the BBC have reported.
The victims have been named as American citizens, Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.
The other four were Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.
Local reports initially suggested there had been a shooting but police later dismissed these reports.
No bruises were found on their bodies, and there was no sign of a struggle.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Deputy Bangkok police chief Gen Noppassin Poonsawat said the group had checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms - four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.
They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.
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Debt is thought to be the motivator behind the deaths.
Two of the six had loaned "tens of millions Thai baht" to another of the deceased for investment purposes, authorities said.
Ten million baht is worth nearly $280,000 (£215,000).
The group ordered food and tea, which was delivered to the room and received by Ms Chong - who was the only person in the room at the time.
According to the deputy police chief, a waiter offered to make tea for the guests but Ms Chong refused this.
The waiter recalled that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”, authorities said.
The waiter later left the room. The rest of the group then began streaming into the room at various points, between 14:03 and 14:17.
No one else is believed to have entered the room apart from the six.
Police say there were no signs of a struggle, robbery, or forced entry and they later found traces of cyanide in all six tea cups.
Pictures released by the police show plates of untouched food left on a table in the room, some of them still covered in cling wrap.
