Six found dead in luxury Bangkok hotel room after suspected cyanide poisoning
Police said a preliminary examination found no evidence of injuries but suggested all six had ingested a toxic substance. (Reuters: Chalinee Thirasupa)
In short:
Six foreign nationals were found dead in a luxury hotel room in Thailand's capital Bangkok.
All six of the deceased were Vietnamese, two of whom had dual US nationality.
What's next?
Bangkok police are investigating whether an investment among the six could be a motive.
Six foreign nationals have been found dead in a luxury hotel room in central Bangkok, with police suspecting one of them poisoned the others with cyanide over a bad investment.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told a press conference at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the upscale Pathum Wan district, where the incident took place the six victims were Vietnamese and two had dual US nationality.
"There were no signs of a struggle," he said.
The victims were three men and three women, with ages ranging from 37 to 56, according to Bangkok's deputy police chief Noppasin Punsawat.
He said the case appeared to be personal and would not impact the safety of tourists.
Lieutenant General Trairong Piwpan, chief of the Thai police force's forensic division, said there were traces of cyanide in the cups and thermoses that police found in the room.
This was later confirmed by the initial autopsy results of the six bodies that was performed at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn Hospital.
The hospital's forensic medicine head Kornkiat Vongpaisarnsin said at a news conference that a CAT scan showed no signs of blunt force trauma on the dead, reinforcing the hypothesis that they had been poisoned.
Chulalongkorn's dean of medicine, Chanchai Sittipunt, said the team "believe the cyanide to be the answer."
"Whether they were taking sleeping pills or other stuff, we don't know, but we can know enough from the cyanide to determine (cause of death )," he said.
Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said all six victims were Vietnamese and two had dual US nationality. (Reuters: Chalinee Thirasupa)
The six had last been seen alive when food was delivered to the room Monday afternoon, local time.
The staff saw one woman receive the food, and security footage showed the rest arriving one by one shortly after.
There were no other visitors, no one was seen leaving and the door was locked.
A maid found them Tuesday afternoon when they failed to check out of the room.
Investment made between six to build a hospital
A husband and wife among the dead had invested money with two of the others, suggesting that money could be a motive, Bangkok's deputy police chief Mr Noppasin said, citing information obtained from relatives of the victims.
The investment was meant to build a hospital in Japan and the group might have been meeting to settle the matter.
Mr Noppasin added on Wednesday that a seventh person whose name was part of the hotel booking was a sibling of one of the six and left Thailand on July 10.
Police believe the seventh person had no involvement in the deaths.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller expressed "our sincere condolences to families on their loss" and said the agency was "closely monitoring the situation" and was "ready to provide assistance to those families".
The area where the crime took place is popular with tourists and home to several upscale shopping malls and the Erawan shrine, a visitor draw.
The incident happened at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in an area popular with tourists. (Reuters: Chalinee Thirasupa)
Last October, a 14-year-old boy opened fire at the Siam Paragon mall in the area, killing three people.
The shooting came just days before the anniversary of a massacre at a nursery in northern Thailand that left 36 people dead.
It happened amid government efforts to bolster tourist numbers.
Some 28 million people visited Thailand in 2023, up from 11 million the year before, but still well down from the 40 million who came in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.
The country has just expanded its visa-free entry scheme to 93 countries and territories in an effort to revitalise the tourism industry.
Wires/ABC