A German kickboxer was arrested after he was allegedly caught growing cannabis at his home in Thailand.

The K-1 fighter, Vincent Moritz, 29, had been living at the large wooden home in Chiang Mai province when neighbours allegedly became suspicious.

An undercover agent reportedly posed as a client interested in renting the property in order to visit the home.

Officers raided the home on October 21 and found its ground floor converted into a cannabis greenhouse with proper lighting and cannabis flower sorting system installed.

They seized 30 healthy cannabis plants reported to be strains originating from Holland and Spain.

The dried marijuana leaves were allegedly dealt in bulk to foreign tourists living in the province.

Vincent, who uses the fighting name Vincent Rich or Vinnii Vinz, said he turned to growing organic cannabis from his rented home to earn a living after the Covid-19 pandemic left him with no stage to fight.

He said: "After the covid-19 outbreak I became jobless. I turned to cannabis cultivation as I had basic knowledge on how to grow the plant. I experimented the Dutch and Spanish strains with organic cultivation and had good results."

The athlete had been on a professional boxing tour in Europe but stopped short of winning the K1 championship. He then moved to Thailand, where Muay Thai, a form of kickboxing, is the national sport.

Police charged him with ''producing and possessing category 5 narcotics without permission'' and was brought to Chiang Mai Police station with the property in dispute to legal proceedings.

Thailand is the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise medical marijuana with more than 700 licenses for distribution, cultivation and extraction have been granted across the country.