By Emily Caulkett-
All tourists visiting or planning to visit Medelle in Columbia must take heed, following a spate of killings in the poverty-stricken country, after a young graduate from the U.S was found dead and robbed.
Tragic 27-year-old, Paul Nguyen from California was found dead on a Colombia street after going on a date with a woman he met on Tinder.
He flew for the first time to Medellín with one of his friends on November 6 but was murdered four days later. No arrests have currently been made in relation to the killing.
Police told his family that he may have been drugged and robbed.
He is the 25th foreign tourist murdered in Medellín this year, raising alarm about the area as a potentially dangerous place for tourists.
His mourning sister, Amy Nguyen, told KABC that he logged on to his Tinder account and went on a date with a woman last Wednesday.
Online news portal Infobae also reported that Paul had a place in mind where they were going to eat in the Medellín city center, but that the woman convinced him to go to a restaurant in the neighborhood of Laureles.
According to the local newspaper El Colombiano, Paul used a credit card to pay to make different payments at a business and had shared on his Instagram account two photos of him with the woman he was with on a date. Columbian police are following all lines of inquiry, and still investigating.
Colombia was hit hard by the pandemic and is said to have one of the highest poverty rate in all of Latin American estimated at 45% by the World Bank.
The level of poverty has led to a high number of armed robberies directly targeted at the affluent and touristic neighborhoods of Poblado and Laureles- the two most common areas of Medellin that traveller’s stay while visiting.
Unfortunately, not many tourists adequately research the countries they plan to visit, instead operating on instincts and the flawed conviction that as an adult, one can look after themselves. This attitude has proved fatal in numerous cases, a trend that is likely to continue and find victims among those who don’t strong precautions during their travel.
Columbia can be a fun destination to travel but is filled with danger for the unsuspecting tourist.
Criminal gangs frequently target tourists, and also go as far as using attractive females as their booby trap to capture happy spending men trying to have a good time. Female tourists also fall victim to covert tricks from other females and men, but the worst nightmare is the fact there are criminals who are prepared to outrightly point a gun at you and rob you dry.
Amazing couple, Kashlee and Trevor, who sold their home and 90% of our belongings in order to travel the world for 10 years, regularly educate online about travelling the world, and have put together a team of travelling writers who provide regular information about various destinations.
Last week, the site posted a detailed assessment of Columbia on their site Travel Path.
The travel site highlighting the potential dangers of a place they had promoted only a few weeks earlier as one of the most beautiful places in the world to visit. Colombia ranked in third place in Forbes’s list of the 50 most beautiful countries in the World, based on a study performed by money.co.uk in a research considered its beautiful landscapes, from the coasts to its borders with Brazil and Venezuela.
Colombia is now the number 1 destination in South America for globetrotters, however, but the dangerous antics of criminal behaviour in Columbia and how they target foreigners is alarming.
Tourists are generally advised not to travel alone and to be very conscious of the criminal gangs which can manifest themselves through single individuals or a group of friendly people in a party scene.
An average of 6 people in Laureles and 5 people in El Poblado were robbed every day in 2019 before the pandemic hit the economy hard Robberies have risen significantly in tourists areas as of August, 2022.
Scopolamine (devil’s breath) is a drug being used in drinks to heavily sedate unsuspecting tourists and then rob them while they are unaware.