Dhaka — What organisers billed as South Asia’s biggest pop festival turned into a criminal probe, mass hospital admissions and an international copyright scandal on Sunday night when an atmospheric scent released over the crowd sent roughly 1,200 people collapsing and forced police to halt the show at 22:10 local time. The event, Monsoon Riot, held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre grounds in Agargaon, sold about 120,000 tickets and took in roughly BDT 720 million (about €6.3 million/ $6.8 million) before security descended and the promoter vanished, investigators told reporters on Monday.
Festival staff deployed dozens of ceiling rigs and two drone units to release a citrus-scented ‘euphoria’ mist at 21:45 as headline acts began. Within minutes paramedics were receiving calls of dizziness, nausea and fainting; Dhaka hospitals received 24 people for observation and first aid, and more than 50 ambulances were dispatched to the site, according to emergency services. A canister recovered by police was labelled LimoMist and later tested positive for a synthetic terpene variant sold commercially as 'Limonix' — but toxicology labs said the sample also contained an unapproved hydrocarbon solvent that can cause rapid loss of consciousness when dispersed in crowded, humid conditions.
“People dropped like trees in a monsoon wind,” said Marit Gabrielsen, a paramedic from a Scandinavian aid unit who spent the night treating festivalgoers under floodlights. “There was an initial smell like citrus, then a burning at the back of the throat — then complete disorientation. We had to triage people who could not stand.”
This looks like a coordinated theft dressed as a festival.
Nicolás Caballero, entertainment lawyer
Police and banking sources say investigators discovered transfers out of the festival’s official accounts in the hours after gates opened; funds totalling about BDT 720 million were moved in staggered payments to shell accounts in Singapore and two emirates, officials said on condition of anonymity. Detectives named promoter Dapper Dino Krishan — the flamboyant organiser behind a string of regional events — as the principal person of interest; CCTV places Krishan’s management team leaving the grounds in several vehicles at 22:30, and airline records indicate one member of the company flew out of Dhaka late Sunday. Organisers’ main supplier, AromaTech, denies wrongdoing and says it supplied a lab-certified compound.
Compounding the crisis, the festival’s main LED rig inexplicably swapped the scheduled live feed for a folder of 72 unreleased master tracks from a major regional label; dozens of previously confidential files were streamed to speakers and briefly cached online, prompting rights-holders to demand emergency takedowns. “We trusted a promoter with advance plays for an album launch,” said Adinata Z. Maulana, a rising pop singer whose unreleased single was among the leaked files. “They sprayed our fans with something we didn’t agree to, and then they played our work like it was gratis. It’s a betrayal on every level.”
Culture ministry officials said they will open a criminal and regulatory investigation and have ordered immediate audits of the event’s finances and technical logs. Mumpuni Pratiwi-Winarsih, director of the national events regulator, told The Plausible Post: “If the aerosol release was negligent or deliberate, the organisers will face criminal charges and corporate bans. We will also work with foreign authorities to trace the money.” Police raided the promoter’s Gulshan office on Monday and found safes emptied and shipping crates marked for Dubai; forensic teams are returning to the site to collect more canisters and server drives.
The fallout is immediate and ugly: ticket platforms have frozen refunds pending the inquiry, artists are demanding insurance payouts and streaming platforms are suspending the leaked tracks while labels seek damages in multiple jurisdictions. For festivalgoers and the dozens treated overnight, a night of planned euphoria has become a headline legal case and an emblem of how quickly entertainment can tip into alleged fraud. Authorities said the search for Dapper Dino Krishan and his chief executive remains active; “We must now untangle whether this was negligence, a stunt gone wrong, or something more calculated,” said Nicolás Caballero, the entertainment lawyer advising several affected acts.
