Couple arrested for selling ‘magic mushrooms’

Police pose with two suspects and bags of magic mushrooms seized from their condominium room in Chatuchak district of Bangkok. (Photo: Metropolitan Police Bureau IDMB Facebook)
Police pose with two suspects and bags of magic mushrooms seized from their condominium room in Chatuchak district of Bangkok. (Photo: Metropolitan Police Bureau IDMB Facebook)

A couple have been arrested at a Bangkok condominium for growing “magic mushrooms” and selling them online, claiming they could help cure many diseases.

Police arrested the pair — identified only as Banyong, 40, and Amita, 36 — at their condominium room in Chatuchak district on Monday. They seized 181 plastic bags of hed khee kwai or psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms, weighing 117 kilogrammes.

The arrest followed a tip-off that the couple had been using the condominium room to illegally grow the mushrooms and were selling them online.

Mr Banyong said he had spent about two years learning how to grow mushrooms from YouTube, TikTok and Google. The couple eventually decided to grow psilocybin mushrooms, which they sold for 100 baht per gramme. They also provided courses on how to consume magic mushrooms, which they claimed could cure physical and mental illnesses. They charged learners 11,110 baht each.

The suspects also claimed that they had achieved nirvana and were gods with magic powers. They also claimed they had used the mushrooms to cure a small boy of an unspecified disease.

Police said the couple earned more than 100,000 baht a month selling the mushrooms and providing courses.

Vocabulary

  • consume: to eat, drink or use something - บริโภค
  • cure: to make someone with an illness healthy again - รักษา
  • disease (noun): a health problem and problem with a person's body, often caused by an infection, either from a bacteria or virus - โรค
  • magic mushroom: a type of mushroom which contain a drug and may make the person who eats them believe they are seeing things which are not real -
  • Nirvana: the state of peace and happiness that a person achieves after giving up all personal desires - สวรรค์, สถานที่สงบสุข
  • tip-off: secret information or a warning given by someone  - ข่าวเตือน จากวงใน
  • unspecified: not stated clearly or definitely - ไม่ระบุให้แน่ชัด
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