Prosecutors on Tuesday said a criminal investigation into ayahuasca ceremonies in Taipei is ongoing, but declined to comment on the status of the self-proclaimed Brazilian “shaman” whose arrest in September last year sparked the probe.
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic elixir made of plants native to South America.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office confirmed that the case — which was brought to light by police responding to media queries at a news conference last week — remained open nearly a year after the arrest of the 30-year-old Brazilian man accused of organizing the ceremonies.
Photo: CNA
However, prosecutors declined to provide any further information about the status of the investigation or any potential criminal proceedings against the man.
Last week, Taipei police said they had received a tip-off in August last year that the man, who had originally come to Taiwan to work as a model, had been organizing ayahuasca ceremonies for about a year using platforms such as Line and Instagram.
Attendees paid NT$4,000 to NT$5,000 each to participate in the ceremonies, where they were given tea possibly containing N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, an illegal substance with hallucinogenic and dissociative properties, police said.
They said they arrested the man at an apartment building in the city’s Songshan District (松山) in September last year, and seized illegal drugs from the premises, including cannabis and ibogaine, as well as essential oils of unknown origin and a shaman’s robe.
Police said the man admitted to brewing ayahuasca, but said that he did not know it was illegal in Taiwan, as it is commonly used in Central and South America.
The man was a self-proclaimed shaman — a practitioner interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness — who guided people during the ceremonies, police said.
Officers said the man was being investigated for offenses under the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), adding that they were still tracing the source of the materials used to brew the ayahuasca.
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