The excellent lawyers who, from Madrid, have the difficult task of presenting the confessed dismemberer, Daniel Sancho, as ‘not guilty’, have overlooked the perfect alibi. It was Koh Phangan’s fault. Not the cha-cha. But also. The paradisiacal Thai island is preceded by an esoteric and telluric fame that is at the origin of its mythical Full Moon festival, with all its excesses.
‘There is a spirit on this island that amplifies all emotions, that pushes you beyond all logic and shows who you really are,’ Giorgia, a yoga teacher based here, explains matter-of-factly. You guessed it, flower power did not die, it just transformed and the New Age discourse still floats like the ether over the shallow beaches of Koh Phangan. “This island is made of glass, of rose quartz. When I return to my cabin I see how they emerge in the countryside. That’s why they also call it the Island of Love. That’s also why it is a magnifying glass that magnifies everything. If you are happy, here “You are going to be overflowing with happiness. But if you are bad, you are going to be worse, you are going to sink.” The combination of psychology and geology, she acknowledges, is not enough to explain psychopathies.
“Besides, most people here take psychedelic drugs, like LSD.” According to this correspondent, the yogi is exaggerating, but an oracle cannot be interrupted. “How does she exaggerate?” Pablo, a man from Salamanca who has attended the one better known as Full Moon Party, in English, then replies. “Total madness and delicious magic mushroom.” Last June, in addition, marijuana boutiques (more than stores) were legalized in Thailand. One of them is in Salad, the crime cove. Hallucinogenic mushrooms are a specialty of the Full Moon festival, which was the reason why Edwin Arrieta and Daniel Sancho had met in Koh Phangan on that date. According to some locals, Sancho would have been seen on his motorcycle on the Rin beach, where it is celebrated, in the preceding days and, after getting rid of the body, less than twenty-four hours later, he went to the influence of the Full Moon festival, as It was his goal.
Giorgia, a southern Italian with the presence of a fortune teller, must be forgiven for not having heard of Daniel Sancho’s crime. “But it doesn’t surprise me at all. This island can drive you crazy. If you’re not a settled person, with your feet on the ground, you can surprise yourself doing things you’ve never done before.”
She doesn’t know it either, but Sancho was preceded by three years by the crime of another Spaniard, Carlos Alcañiz from Egar, who raided the house of a Chilean friend (and his Chinese girlfriend) to stab him repeatedly. He finished him off by leaving the knife stuck in his chest. It is not clear why he did it. because they were involved in the same NGO project, The Chosen Ones. The Thai press speculated about a polyamorous relationship and a bout of dementia, which could have been the result of hallucinogenic drugs. Alcañiz had fled from justice after fatally running over a grandmother in Terrassa. Carlos, ‘The Chosen One’, would now be Daniel Sancho’s best friend in Samui prison, along with a British inmate. He unites them with the same hobby: Muay Thai or Thai fighting.
Some Samui taxi drivers are almost envious of their island’s inmates. “It’s a new prison, it’s not even five years old. Now that’s a vacation!” The Grab taxi driver (the local Uber) estimates that Daniel Sancho will receive “ten years in prison, with good behavior.” Someone with half a century of experience says almost the same thing. “Ten, minimum eight.” Once sentenced he should begin serving his sentence in Bangkok prison.
There Sancho will meet another Terrassa resident, the swindler Artur Segarra, already convicted of dismembering a friend (David Bernat) after extorting and torturing him. Segarra continues saying that he did not kill him, something that in his day cost him the death sentence, later commuted after a letter to the king of Siam. The superior of the Jesuits, Father Miguel, has already offered to bring Sancho “thirty or forty cans of tuna a month and a thousand baht” (25 euros) just as he does with Segarra.
“Actually, this island has two faces, like the moon,” says Georgia. “The south, of partying and drugs, and the north, where I live, which is the face of meditation, of yoga, of healthy living.” Get lost or found. It must be said that in the interest of the Thai government itself, this last aspect has been gaining ground over that of perdition. But there is a wedge, that of money, “due to Russian and Israeli expatriates who drive up prices,” they say. The presence of the latter, however, has been greatly reduced, also in Samui, due to the mobilization of reservists. And Russians, like Ukrainians, still prefer the island of Phuket.
“Phangan is going from hippie to elitist,” one hears people say. After losing Koh Samui, the day you lose Koh Phangan, there will be the last frontier, Koh Tao, the even smaller and more distant island, which can be seen perfectly from the pirate cove of Salad. But even Koh Tao (koh means ‘island’) has had time to create a bad reputation, beyond the good diving. Five or ten years ago, the British press dubbed it the island of death, for crimes that have not yet been clarified.
Although the murder of a British couple opened fire, they later buried up to seven more murders of foreigners that had gone almost unnoticed or were swept under the rug, to the extent that a hanged man with his hands tied behind his back was considered a suicide. . It is true that in Pattaya, a mecca of sex tourism, something similar happens every week. But Koh Tao was far from a Taoist trail. That said, on all these islands there are communities of Chinese origin that have been settled for many generations and the statues of their deities compete – or collaborate – with the very serene Buddha.
In Koh Tao, the Russian-speaking mafia detected at the time was presented, three or four years ago, as dismantled by super-agent Big Joke, who also solved the Arrieta case in record time, starting Sancho’s self-incrimination. But things have continued to happen on Koh Phangan. Contrary to what a police sergeant told this newspaper, there have been murders in Koh Phangan in 2024. Not even two months ago, a Moroccan killed his friend, an Austrian DJ, who had been entertaining for years, with a steel rod. the local scene. A well-watered party ended in a fight.
Those drowned at the Full Moon party due to the effects of drugs or alcohol are not news. Not even those burned by jumping into the fiery rope. Thailand fears bad propaganda more than ever, because many digital nomads and many more group tourists, like the Chinese, never really returned after the pandemic.
Sancho was not on Koh Phangan by chance. “He himself has confessed his interest in The Teachings of Don Juan, the old book on peyote and shamans by Carlos Castañeda. But the possible toxicological angle of these matters often ends in a dead angle, because it is a thread that the police prefer not to stretch On the stalls or in the corners of Haad Rin, the beach where one of the most cosmopolitan electronic parties is held, mushrooms grow like mushrooms.
The trial in Koh Samui continued this Wednesday for the second day, behind closed doors, with the presence among the witnesses of the person who sold him the knives – for cooking, according to his defense, although the villa where he was staying had utensils. kitchen/ and Kanda, the lady from the only supermarket in Salad, who sold him the kayak.
Finally, Giorgia, who is already back from the Himalayas, is not surprised by Daniel Sancho’s record. “Most of my yoga disciples have this same profile. They come from wealthy families, with parents who stand out, and they are looking for something different. Many of them to heal a childhood trauma.” The question remains as to why he did it. And then he asks to see a photo of Sancho and Arrieta and the shivaist bun jumps. “To get rid of a problem. She was becoming his biggest enemy.” And he adds: “I know what I’m talking about, I’ve met many gangsters.” In Rome, Roman. On Koh Phangan, on the Moon.
