BBC:
Six people who died in a luxury hotel suite in Thailand were poisoned by drinks laced with cyanide, police have said.
Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by crushing debt.
The six deceased were found dead by housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the Thai capital Bangkok late on Tuesday.
Investigators believe they had been dead for 24 hours by then.
Two of the six had loaned “tens of millions of Thai baht” to another of the deceased for investment purposes, authorities said. Ten million baht is worth nearly $280,000 (£215,000).
Confusion and mystery had earlier surrounded the discovery of the bodies, with local reports initially suggesting there had been a shooting. Police later dismissed these reports.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin visited the hotel on Tuesday and ordered an urgent investigation into the case, stressing that it was a “private matter” unrelated to national security.
A clearer picture is emerging now of what might have happened.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Deputy Bangkok police chief Gen Noppassin Poonsawat said the group had checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms – four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.
They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.
Four of the victims are Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.
The other two are American citizens Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.
The US state department has offered its condolences and said it is “closely monitoring” the situation. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting Thai authorities in the investigation, Mr Srettha said.
