U.S. Embassy warns Americans in Colombia against using dating apps amid suspicious deaths
The U.S. Embassy in Bogota is warning Americans in Colombia to be cautious while using online dating sites in the country, after eight U.S. citizens were found dead in Medellín over a two-month period under suspicious circumstances.
The deaths occurred in November and December. While U.S. officials do not believe they are directly linked to one another, each case involved involuntary drugging overdoses, and several involved encounters organized on dating apps and social media, the embassy said.
“Be cautious if using online dating apps in Colombia,” the embassy notice reads. “If meeting with a stranger, you should strongly consider meeting only in public places and avoiding isolated locations, such as residences or hotel rooms, where crimes are most likely to occur.”
Embassy officials have seen an increase in reported incidents of online dating apps being used to “lure victims” over the past year, the notice said. “The Embassy regularly receives reports of these types of incidents occurring in major cities.”
In one of the most recent cases reported, Minnesota comedian Tou Ger Xiong, 50, was kidnapped in Medellín on Dec. 10 after going on a date with a woman he met through social media. Local media reported that, at some point during his abduction, he managed to call his roomate in Colombia and tell him he was being held at gunpoint by men demanding a $2,000 ransom.
The ransom was never paid, and Xiong was later found dead of multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma.
Xiong previously had been broadcasting a very active social life in Colombia on his social media accounts, posting several photos of attractive girls he had met for dates. Officials in the South American country believe he was lured into a trap by one of the women he had been in contact with online.
In a similar case, a California man was drugged, kidnapped and killed in the same city after going on a Tinder date. Logistics consultant Paul Nguyen, 27, disappeared after agreeing to meet a woman at a bar, posting a photo of her wearing a white jacket and dark jeans in Snapchat and commenting that “the language barrier is unreal.”
The next morning, Nguyen’s body was found next to a dumpster without his wallet and phone, in what was later described by the local press as another Tinder honeytrap robbery gone wrong.
The State Department advises U.S. citizens to reconsider their travel plans to Colombia, and specifically warns against travel to the departments of Arauca, Cauca, Norte de Santander, and the Colombian-Venezuelan border regions.
The Miami Herald has previously reported that U.S. officials suspect that Venezuelan security officials have been using Venezuelan women on dating apps to entrap American men visiting Colombia and lure them to the border.
Several male U.S. citizens who have been wrongfully detained by Venezuela in recent years were brought to the border region by Venezuelan girlfriends.
The U.S. Embassy recommends that Americans using dating apps in Colombia “tell a friend or family member of your plans, including where you are going, details of the person you are meeting, and the app you used to meet them.”
“Victims who are targeted via online dating applications tend to have their electronic devices stolen,” their notice reads, “which often contain all evidence of communication with the assailants.”
