When Carlos, an American\u00a0expat\u00a0living in Colombia, finally met\u00a0in person\u00a0the attractive young woman he had been messaging on a dating app, his apprehension began to melt away. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we first met, I had a sort of doubt, but then we somehow decided to go to my apartment to finish watching a football\u00a0game. Colombia was playing Mexico and we decided to watch the second half at mine,\u201d\u00a0the single father recalls. <\/p>\n
They had a glass of wine and a conversation\u00a0at his home in Bogota; their chemistry in person seemingly every bit as special as it had been online. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen the\u00a0game\u00a0ended\u2026 and we had a second glass of wine and I remember I felt weird, like heavier in my head. And that\u2019s the last thing I remember.\u201d <\/p>\n
Carlos \u2013\u00a0who asked for his real name to not be used for professional reasons\u00a0\u2014\u00a0was\u00a0so\u00a0dizzy\u00a0the next morning that he went to the hospital.\u00a0Doctors there\u00a0informed\u00a0him he had been drugged.\u00a0It took him days to recover.\u00a0When\u00a0Carlos\u00a0finally returned\u00a0home, he realized\u00a0that several of his possessions\u00a0were missing\u00a0\u2013 including his passport and those of his\u00a0children. <\/p>\n
Carlos\u00a0is not alone. <\/p>\n
While romantic violence, largely targeting women, is not new in Colombia, a recent\u00a0series of violent incidents in which people looking for love were allegedly assaulted, robbed and\u00a0in some cases\u00a0even killed has\u00a0caught the attention of\u00a0the US State Department: At least eight\u00a0\u201csuspicious deaths\u201d of\u00a0American citizens\u00a0occurred\u00a0in the city of Medellin between November and December 2023,\u00a0according to a warning issued by the US Embassy in Bogota this month\u00a0about the risks involved with dating apps and meeting strangers alone in an intimate setting. <\/p>\n
\u201cCriminals use dating apps to lure victims to meet in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and bars, and then later assault and rob them,\u201d it warned in a security alert published on January 10. <\/p>\n
\u201cNumerous US citizens in Colombia have been drugged, robbed, and even killed by their Colombian dates,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
The alert recommends that US citizens in the country \u201cbe vigilant, maintain heightened situational awareness, and incorporate strong personal security practices.\u201d <\/p>\n
Most online dating applications also offer help lines\u00a0in case of incidents on\u00a0dates and\u00a0share similar tips: always meet your date in public places, especially at the beginning of a relationship, and if you feel pressured to go somewhere private, end the date. <\/p>\n
At this point, US officials do not believe the eight deaths are linked, \u201chowever, several of the deaths point to possible drugging, robbery and overdose, and several involve the use of dating applications,\u201d the embassy\u00a0alert\u00a0said. <\/p>\n
US officers have also seen an increase in reports of robbery cases involving online dating apps in the last 12 months, the alert notes. <\/p>\n
And it suggests the actual number of victims may be even higher, because \u201cvictims are embarrassed and do not want to follow through with the judicial process.\u201d <\/p>\n
Incidents resulting in the death of foreign citizens or tourists in Colombia are relatively unusual\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in the last two months of 2022, just\u00a0one US citizen died in Colombia\u00a0, in a drowning in the Caribbean coast city of Santa Marta. <\/p>\n
But as post-pandemic travel and tourism to the country ramp up, violent crime\u00a0appears to be rising too.\u00a0In Medellin alone, thefts committed against foreigners in\u00a0the third trimester\u00a0last year increased 200% from the same period in 2022,\u00a0according to the Embassy. <\/p>\n
And in many cases of robbery or kidnapping, criminals use drugs and sedatives to render their victim helpless. <\/p>\n
On an average night out in\u00a0Bogot\u00e1\u00a0or Medellin it\u2019s\u00a0not uncommon\u00a0to hear warnings about\u00a0Burundanga<\/em>, the Colombian name for scopolamine, a powerful and hard-to-detect alkaloid that\u00a0in concentrated forms\u00a0can render a victim unconscious for up to 24 hours and, in large quantities, can cause respiratory failure and death. <\/p>\n Scopolamine is used legitimately and in small quantities as an anti-nausea medication, but criminals have used the narcotic for thefts and robberies for a while:\u00a0The US Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC)\u00a0has been warning about scopolamine in Colombian tourist hotspots as far back as 2012, stating that up to 50,000 incidents related to the drug were taking place every year in the country.\u00a0In June 2023, the US State Department said\u00a0that in Bogota,\u00a0crimes involving\u00a0scopolamine\u00a0appeared to be on the rise. <\/p>\n The effects of the drug can be long-lasting. <\/p>\n He hopes the new scrutiny triggered by the US Embassy alert could change things. <\/p>\n \u201cI understand that Colombia is a country where a lot of crime happens, and I guess crimes like this are seen as small by the authorities\u2026 or maybe they don\u2019t have resources to deal with this. But now we\u2019re talking about eight people who have been killed in recent months,\u201d Carlos said. <\/p>\n However, the alert seems to have caused a stir among at least some local authorities. Medellin mayor Federico Gutierrez, for example, told reporters last week that he would like to see more visitors focus on what he described as \u201cpositive tourism\u201d than the use of dating apps. <\/p>\n \u201cWe want more foreigners to come to Medellin, US citizens, Europeans, whoever, but we want a positive tourism,\u201d he said, when asked about the matter. \u201cPeople who want to come here to do sex-and-drugs tourism are mistaken.\u201d <\/p>\n One of the first measures\u00a0Gutierrez passed\u00a0after\u00a0taking office on January 1 was to issue a ban on drug consumption in public places. A similar order has also been issued in Cartagena, another tourist hotspot in the Colombian Caribbean coast that has seen a rise in\u00a0street prostitution\u00a0and drug-related incidents following the rise in tourism at the end of the pandemic. <\/p>\n \u201cLast year, 482,000 foreigners came to Medellin, so it\u2019s not like everyone who comes to Medellin finds those problems. I guarantee, those who come to Medellin to do positive tourism, to see our culture and visit our museums, our squares, don\u2019t run any risk,\u201d Gutierrez also said. <\/p>\n Looking back, Carlos says he feels relatively lucky \u2013 and relieved that the woman appears to have been acting alone. CCTV footage taken from a nearby shop showed her leaving the apartment by herself carrying his laptop and other electronics. <\/p>\n Things could have turned out much worse. \u201cIf you think about it, it\u2019s just scary to be there, drugged, passed out, unable to defend yourself. She could have done anything she wanted,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n While he hasn\u2019t been on any dating apps since then, Carlos does not blame the apps for his experience. <\/p>\n He does, however, feel authorities and society at large need to take a new approach to responding to cases like his. <\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, people around me essentially said it was my fault for doing this (going on a dating app). I think that in this time and age this is the way many people meet, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with it. Some people instead made me feel like it was my fault for having looked to meet women this way.\u201d <\/p>\n He says that when he reported the incident to the\u00a0police,\u00a0he felt like he was being blamed for not being more cautious. <\/p>\n \u201c[They] essentially were like: \u2018Why did you do this, you know it\u2019s dangerous, things like this can happen to you\u2019 instead of taking up their responsibilities,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n When Carlos, an American\u00a0expat\u00a0living in Colombia, finally met\u00a0in person\u00a0the attractive young woman he had been messaging on a dating app, his apprehension began to melt away. \u201cWhen we first met, I had a sort of doubt, but then we somehow decided to go to my apartment to finish watching a football\u00a0game. Colombia was playing Mexico <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018We want a positive tourism\u2019 <\/h2>\n
\u2018She could have done anything\u2019<\/h2>\n