Steven Valdez thought he recognized the woman in Medellin Park. While chatting, the two realized they had been matched on the Tinder dating platform. They exchanged numbers and made plans.
On their date last spring, he said his wife suggested he try a typical Colombian dish — a creamy soup called ajiaco. He carried it from a restaurant counter to their table.
He had two spoonfuls, said Mr. Valdez, 31. “And that’s the last thing I remember.”
Like many visitors to the Colombian city last year, Mr. Valdez, a travel blogger, said he was told in hospital that he had ingested a powerful, potentially fatal cocktail of sedatives, including a drug called scopolamine.
Scopolamine makes its victims black, and experts say it can also make them unusually open to suggestions – including agreeing to hand over a wallet or reveal passwords.
U.S. officials are so concerned that they issued a security alert this month about the tranquilizers and a wave of violent crimes targeting visitors to Colombia, especially in the increasingly popular tourist destination of Medellin, a city of 2.6 million in an Andean valley .
The US Embassy, in an earlier security warning, described scopolamine as “an odorless, tasteless memory-blocking substance used to incapacitate and rob unwary victims” and warned against using dating apps in Colombia or visiting nightclubs and bars.
Colombian officials say many of the incidents involve the city’s sex industry.
“Unfortunately, because of word of mouth, people find out that in Medellin there are beautiful girls and you can party really hard for a very low cost,” said Carlos Calle, who monitors the tourism industry for the city government. “Criminals are taking advantage of it.”
Since the pandemic, Medellin has also attracted thousands of digital nomads looking for cultural immersion and a cheap Airbnb, and researchers and lawyers say they too are being targeted on mainstream dating platforms like Tinder.
Tinder did not respond to a request for comment.
Although deaths are relatively rare, authorities in Medellín said the number of robberies involving scopolamine and other sedatives has risen sharply in recent years, although the exact number is unknown because many victims do not go to the police.
“There are people who feel very embarrassed because if they file a report, people will know what they did,” said Manuel Villa Mejía, the city’s security secretary.
Jorge Wilson Vélez, a criminologist who works with victims and their families, said there were probably hundreds of victims last year.
The perpetrators see the robberies as a tax on tourists whom they consider wealthy and in Colombia prey on women, Mr. Velez said. The intention is not to kill anyone, he added. “They call it, ‘giving the kids something to sleep on.'”
Last year, Medellín saw 1.4 million foreign visitors, nearly 40 percent of whom were Americans, according to city data.
Crimes against American visitors have raised fears in the expat community. An English-language Facebook group, Colombia Scopolamine Victims & Alerts, has about 3,800 members.
Americans are taking a hit, Mr. Velez said, because they go online “looking for companionship, for a relationship,” and especially when they’re dating alone.
Scopolamine, also known as “devil’s breath”, has been reported elsewhere in Latin America and beyond, with cases appearing from London to Bangkok.
But the rise of the drug in Colombia, and the embassy’s warning to Americans, is a particular blow to a country that is trying hard to change its image.
Medellin, in particular, has struggled to shed associations with drugs, violence and Pablo Escobar. The city has undergone a major transformation since the 1990s, with stylish museums, cafes on tree-lined streets and the country’s only metro system. While some criminal gangs remain, homicide rates in the city have fallen.
Crimes targeting tourists may tarnish that rosy picture — but so do the tourists themselves, according to officials and lawyers representing men targeted by thieves, who say some treat Medellin like a seedy playground.
“There is this strange mystery. You come to Medellin and the normal rules don’t apply,” said Alan Gongora, an American attorney in Medellin. “Well, anything is possible.”
Some crime victims said they were just looking for a date.
During the pandemic, Mr. Valdez left Los Angeles, where he worked in television production, to travel and work on his blogs, including one called We Like Colombia. He was in Medellin last May, working and taking bachata classes, he said, when he opened Tinder to find a dance partner.
After his date with a woman who called herself Louisa, he said he woke up in his Airbnb, alone and unable to stand. His right leg felt broken.
The police later told him that his captors had beaten him, probably because he had resisted being robbed, Mr. Valdez said. Blood tests at the hospital revealed the presence of scopolamine and another drug, clonazepam, an antidepressant.
He lost his phones, laptop, wallet and about $7,000, he said.
But he felt lucky to be alive.
Mr. Valdez reported the attack and his date and several others were arrested after they tried to use his bank cards to buy devices at a store, police said.
He tries to keep what happened in perspective. “I’ve been to Colombia, eight times now since the pandemic,” said Mr. Valdez, who now lives in Puerto Rico. “I’ve seen organized crime run rampant because the prices are so high there. You know, ordinary citizens can’t afford it.”
Criminal groups that lure victims through dating platforms are usually small, independent gangs from poor neighborhoods, investigators in Medellin said.
A 42-year-old New York man recalled being drugged by a Tinder date who served him a rum and coke that he said knocked him out for 24 hours.
She stole his electronic devices, silver jewelry, a bank card and cash. “I thought I had lost everything,” said the man, who asked to use his initials, RJ, to protect future job prospects. But his passport and IDs were exactly where he had hidden them. A police report seen by The Times confirmed details of the crime.
Leaving a passport, investigators said, is a signature of these crimes — it’s meant to encourage victims to get away without reporting the robbery or pressing charges.
Some thieves can be sophisticated.
In December, a young German scientist touring Latin America who posted videos named Dr. Travel said he was robbed in Medellin by a woman he was “chatting” with after having her friend for a meal.
He drank a pink soda, he said in a video, and later woke up to find his wallet and phone gone. His phone’s tracking feature was disabled, his Apple ID password was changed, and his bank account was drained. Holdings in many cryptocurrency exchanges were sold, funds were transferred to other cryptocurrency wallets.
He lost more than $16,000, he said. Attempts to reach the man were unsuccessful.
Scopolamine has long been used to treat nausea and sickness, but it became popular in larger doses about three decades ago as a recreational drug and to commit crimes, said Guillermo Castaño, a senior researcher at Colombia’s science ministry.
About 10 years ago, criminals in Colombia began using it to target tourists, Dr. Castaño said, often mixing it with benzodiazepines, depressants that typically treat insomnia and anxiety, to further upset victims.
In one widely publicized case, Paul Nguyen, a 27-year-old from California, was fatally drugged by a Tinder date in Medellín in late 2022, his body found near a dumpster. An autopsy found that he had been drugged with clonazepam, which, combined with alcohol, had caused his death.
His date and several accomplices were arrested and are now on trial, with the help of a photo of the woman Mr Nguyen posted on Snapchat before he disappeared.
Authorities in Medellín have said stopping the attacks is a top priority. Four people were recently arrested in connection with the murder of another American tourist who may have met online.
However, arrests are rare.
Mr. Nguyen’s mother, Kimberly Dao, said the family had to hire Mr. Vélez, the investigator, to pressure the police to pursue the case.
For Ms. Dao, the US Embassy’s notice about online dating in Colombia is a sign that the issue is being taken seriously — though she wishes it had come sooner.
If he had, he said, “I would beg him, I wouldn’t let him go.”
Federico Rios contributed reporting from Medellín, Colombia and Simon Posada contributed reporting from Bogota, Colombia.
