The Spanish police announced this Wednesday that they dismantled a shamanic organization that promised “an improvement in physical and emotional health” through rituals in which it provided participants with substances such as ayahuascawhich was manufactured in Colombia.
Eighteen people, including several Latin Americans, were arrested in several cities in Spain for having promoted or organized the “neoshamanic rituals” for profit, the police said in a statement.
People paid to participate in these events, where they consumed psychotropic substances such as ayahuasca, peyote or kambó, a poison secreted by an Amazonian frog, under the tutelage of a doctor and his partner, who also posed as a doctordetailed the text.
The group had a center in the Colombian jungle where “it had the means and raw materials necessary to make the ayahuasca brew,” a hallucinogenic drink that is traditionally prepared from a vine in the Amazon jungle.
Ayahuasca was introduced into Spain through mules or hidden among imported products.
The rituals of this international network were carried out in Spain, Mexico and Colombia in Latin America, and in other countries such as France, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Romania, Malta and Turkey, according to the statement.
Those arrested, mostly Latin Americans and Spaniards, are suspected of belonging to a criminal organization, crimes against public health, human trafficking, illegal exercise of a profession and violation of the immigration law, among other charges.
The leader of the organization, whom his followers considered “a spiritual teacher or guru,” died “during the investigation of the case,” the police said.
The researchers began their investigations when they detected the promotion on social networks “of neoshamanic rituals”, which promised “an improvement in the physical and emotional health of the participants thanks to the consumption of different psychoactives.”
“These types of psychoactive substances are usually used within the framework of ceremonies practiced by the so-called ‘new age sects'” and “they become an instrument used by the shaman for the recruitment and coercive control of the group,” the police added.
The agents recovered 24,000 euros ($26,000), a kilo of mescaline and more than 60 kg of ayahuasca from the organization.
Source: Ambito
