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A British hippy couple accused of using mind-bending drugs in unlicensed shamanic healing sessions have been arrested in Spain.
The pair, a man aged 47 and a woman aged 52, were held at a rural property in Yecla near the south-east city of Murcia.
Detectives say they offered their services online, providing accommodation for up to 16 paying guests at a time and organising rituals involving ‘dangerous substances’ with no health controls including magic mushrooms, ayahuasca and sananga which is used by some tribes in the Amazon region to sharpen night vision.
They made the arrests after interrupting a ‘healing session’ for seven people of different nationalities.
A British hippy couple accused of using mind-bending drugs in unlicensed shamanic healing sessions have been arrested in Spain. Pictured: A police raid of the property
Several goldfinch wings were also found in the property despite the fact the goldfinch is a protected species.
The British couple have not been named.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Murcia confirmed: ‘The Civil Guard, as part of an operation codenamed Kambo, has arrested two people who captured clients for supposed shamanic healing sessions.
‘They are a British man aged 47 and a woman aged 52.
‘A number of harmful substances have been seized which were being administered without any sanitary controls to Spaniards and people from other European countries.
The pair, a man aged 47 and a woman aged 52, were held at a rural property in Yecla near the south-east city of Murcia. Police allegedly found drugs at the property
Police made the arrests after interrupting a ‘healing session’ for seven people of different nationalities
Several goldfinch wings were also found in the property despite the fact that the goldfinch is a protected species
‘The British couple offered their services online with promotional material in which they advertised their rural property as a house of healing orientated towards self-help groups and things like addiction disintoxication.
‘They had no licence or authorisation. Despite this they were charging people £40 a night for minimum stays of three nights, with group offers of £450 a day for 16 guests.
In May last year Spanish police raided a luxury Costa del Sol villa after a British holidaymaker claimed he had been offered ayahuasca when he complained about his accommodation.
The tourist told detectives he was invited to ‘chill out’ by taking the hallucinogenic brew after discovering he was being expected to share a bedroom with strangers.
Cops discovered an illegal party with 40 people was going on at the villa in the upmarket resort of Marbella when they went to investigate.
Drugs allegedly found include magic mushrooms, ayahuasca and sananga which is used by some tribes in the Amazon region to sharpen night vision
Detectives say the couple offered their services online, providing accommodation for up to 16 paying guests at a time
The operation ended up with police arresting the female organiser of the bash when she allegedly kicked one officer after refusing to hand over ID and bit another in the chest.
In September 2018 a British accountant identified as 31-year-old Arron Kilburn was accused of selling £500 weekend retreats to Spain where guests were given ayahuasca to drink.
A UK Sunday newspaper report said customers of Ayahuasca English, the company Mr Kilburn ran, were whisked to a vast villa in Marbella for a three-day retreat costing £560 where they took part in all-night ayahuasca sessions and ‘psychotherapeutic integration’.
Investigators accused the pair of organising rituals involving ‘dangerous substances’ with no health controls
Nicknamed ‘little death’, the potent psychoactive drug is often drunk during tribal rituals in the Amazon rainforest by Westerners who have been promised they will experience ‘spiritual enlightenment’.
A string of celebs including Sting, Paul Simon and Lindsay Lohan are said to have endorsed the class-A drug, a blend of the ayahuasca vine and a shrub called chacruna.
In August 2019 an inquest concluded that the drug contributed to the death of gap-year student Henry Miller, from Bristol, after he drank the substance during a ritual in Colombia in 2014.
In 2015, Unais Gomes, 26, a Cambridge graduate and former Goldman Sachs banker, died after taking ayahuasca. He was stabbed to death by a friend who said he was acting in self-defence after the pair became involved in a violent struggle at a retreat in Peru.