Young Men in Upscale Atlanta Neighborhood Warned About Being Drugged and Robbed After Barhopping
According to police records and national reports, young men in Atlanta have reported being drugged and robbed while out in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood between 2021 and February of this year. Now, police are urging people who spend time out in Atlanta to take precautions to stay safe.
Several victims shared their chilling experiences with the police. Most accounts involve victims losing their memory, possibly due to spiked drinks, before being robbed. A common thread in these accounts is the victims’ draw of memory blanks in between having a seemingly simple night out and their eerie awakenings with missing personal effects.
Victims’ Haunting Accounts
Most recently, on Feb. 8, a robbery victim disclosed that he “was hanging out at Bar Thirty with his brother and his friend” when they left, and the victim “decided to stay a little longer.” He remembered ordering his last drink around 2 a.m. but does not remember what happened between then and 3 a.m. When he regained his senses, he was standing outside an apartment complex, without his phone and wallet. The next day, he received “multiple notifications from CashApp,” revealing that $700 had been withdrawn from his account, and there was a notification for an attempted purchase of over $4,000 worth of Bitcoin from his Venmo account.
On Feb. 5, another robbery victim indicated he was at the “5 Paces Inn Bar,” where he was possibly drugged and robbed. The victim didn’t have a lot to drink, yet he experienced a similar memory blackout and later found himself bleeding from the left eye. The next morning, he activated a spare phone, only to find notifications that the suspected thief had sent himself $1,600 from CashApp and withdrew an additional $500 from the victim’s Truist bank account.
Awareness and Police Action
Given the increasing frequency of these incidences, police are urging people to take precautions such as staying together with friends, paying “close attention” to drinks, reporting any tampering with drinks, and being aware of one’s surroundings. Citizens are also advised to protect their banking apps with passwords.
“The Atlanta Police Department is aware of these cases and is investigating each. Investigators routinely look for connections to similar, nearby cases as well as for any possible connection to potential cases throughout our jurisdiction and in surrounding areas,” Atlanta Police Department (APD) spokesperson Teralyn Griffin told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Griffin added that though the department is “not at a point of releasing details on each of these investigations,” authorities take the allegations “seriously,” and “investigators are committed to finding who is responsible and apprehending them.”
Despite the concerns raised by some victims that Atlanta police have dismissed their reports, one person has so far been apprehended in connection with the robbery incidents in Buckhead, as confirmed by the APD spokesperson.
