'Drugged, robbed, killed' The city catching US 2024

 A series of mysterious deaths involving American men in Colombia has been linked to a dating app. Relatives of those killed are now searching for answers, writes Austin Landis in Medellin.

Tou Ger Xiong is happy to be back in Colombia.

“He talked about passionate people… just enjoying life,” his brother, Eh Xiong, told BBC News. "He's even learning Spanish."

"It never crossed his mind that he would experience something as tragic as this."

Tou Ger, 50, is a Hmong-American community activist and comedian from Minnesota. Before his last trip to Medellin, he talked to a woman online.

A few weeks into his two-month visit, in mid-December, he called his brother and asked for $2,000 but didn't say what it was for or that something was wrong. Eh said he would transfer the money. He never heard from his brother again.

The next day, police found Tou Ger's body in a remote wooded area of the city. A friend in Medellin explained to Eh that his brother had been kidnapped and held at gunpoint for a $2,000 ransom.

“I don't want to believe it. I don't know if that really happened," said Eh. "My heart just sank."

Eh rushed to contact the US embassy, which confirmed it was his brother's body. Colombian police this week arrested a woman and two men in connection with her death, and charged them with kidnapping and murder.

It's unclear whether he first met the woman through a dating app or through a friend. But his death was one of eight deaths in Medellin that prompted a warning from the US embassy about the risks of using dating apps. The eight victims were Americans who died under suspicious circumstances in November and December.

The US State Department said it was aware of a gang in the city that had previously used dating apps to isolate victims before kidnapping and killing them. But it is not clear whether a gang was behind AS's death.

In the first 10 months of 2023, Medellin's tourism observatory has recorded 32 violent killings of foreigners in the city – including at least 12 Americans and three British – a 40% increase from the previous year.

Jeff Hewett was found “lying dead in a pool of blood” in his Medellin hotel room, his friends wrote online, describing him as “easy-going, dour and good-natured” and clearly the victim of a “bad robbery.”

Johny Jerome was killed on his 45th birthday. Phillip Mullins was drugged and died of an overdose, according to local media reports.

The embassy said some of these cases stem from dating apps being used to lure victims, who are part of a growing number of people who end up being "drugged, robbed and even murdered by their dates in Colombia". Neither Tinder nor Bumble, both popular in the city, would comment.

Carlos Calle, former director of the city's tourism observatory, said it was common for criminals to drug tourists with scopolamine, an odorless substance known as "Devil's Breath." The US Embassy also warned about the drug, which can sedate victims for up to 24 hours.

“There is a negative profile of tourists in this city who are looking for certain opportunities,” Calle said in an interview. It's usually related to sex work, he said.

A spokesperson for the tourism observatory confirmed that the “majority” of last year's victims were men, but added that many cases remained under investigation.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia and widespread in tourist destinations such as the cities of Medellin and Cartagena. However, there is no indication that the people killed were commercial sex workers.

Alok Shah, 36, contends that scopolamine was the cause of his vision "going off the rails" when he brought a woman back to his hotel room in late 2022. It was like his short-term memory was disappearing, he said.

The Texas resident had matched with a Colombian woman in her mid-20s on Tinder. Initially they went out for coffee, but Shah then decided to buy beer and take it to his hotel.

He said he didn't feel unsafe during his previous visits to Medellin, or that prostitution was as prevalent as when he first came in 2017. But he knew that women were a draw for the city. “If you are a single man, the women here are very beautiful,” a friend told him.

Before his watch, jacket and $200 in cash disappeared that night, he remembers his date applying powder to his neck. But he remained sober enough to realize something was wrong, threatening to call the police and throw her out.

“I don't usually interact with the locals there now,” he said. "Too much danger, too much risk."

The US embassy's new notice recommends its citizens avoid dating in private places such as hotels, and also inform friends, family or building staff about who they are with. And don't resist robbery because it can be fatal.

Medellin city police would not comment on the recent increase in violent deaths and referred BBC News to the mayor's office.

“We want more and more foreigners to come to this city,” said Mayor Federico Gutierrez, but added that tourists who come solely for the purpose of sex and drugs are not welcome. He said he had directed police to crack down on what he said was an underlying problem, namely sex trafficking of minors.

Police have been directed to initiate "special interventions" in neighborhoods where tourism is most prominent, a mayoral spokesman told BBC News, including a popular nightlife area called El Poblado.

More than 1.4 million foreigners visited the city as tourists in 2022, a new record compared to previous years, and more than a quarter of them were Americans, according to statistics released by the mayor's office. The number in 2023 is expected to be even higher, in part because Medellin has become a top destination for remote workers.

Last week, Eh Xiong came to Medellin in person for the first time, to carry out the Hmong tradition of calling his brother's spirit home.

“We are not angry with the Colombian people,” he said. I truly believe that he will forgive the people who did that to him.

He added: "[Tou Ger has] a quick wit, courage, who believes in the good of all people."

Austin Landis is a multimedia journalist based in Medellin, covering migration and stories from Colombia. He previously covered the White House in Washington for Spectrum News