This happened in April 2023, so this is not some current 2026 crime-wave fearmongering story.
I’m a Latino American, I don’t really look stereotypically American, and people often assume I’m Brazilian, which becomes important later. I’m also fluent in Spanish, although I have a slight accent that could probably pass as Brazilian.
I was in Bogotá, Colombia, when a friend invited me to Vintrash Bar for Gringo Tuesdays. I was hesitant because I already knew I didn’t really like the place or the crowd it attracted, but I had free cover and decided to go along anyway.
I brought a burner iPhone 11 with me. Unfortunately, the SIM card stopped working that exact night. The phone had no banking apps or anything important on it, just navigation apps and Uber.
I also didn’t bring any credit or debit cards because I had no intention of spending much money at a bar I didn’t even want to visit.
About 30 minutes after we arrived, I decided I’d had enough and wanted to go home.
My mobile data wasn’t working, and I couldn’t find my friends.
That’s when I made the worst decision of the night.
I wandered off alone down Avenida Calle 85 at around 11:30 p.m. and started trying to hail a taxi.
I was wearing a collared shirt and nicer shoes, which probably made me look like I had money and made me an easier target.
The first few taxis didn’t stop. Eventually, one pulled over that looked completely legitimate. It appeared to be a newer car, maybe around a 2020 model, and the license plate matched the identifying information displayed on the taxi.
I got in.
The driver asked where I was going, and I gave him the general direction.
Then I noticed he hadn’t turned on the meter.
I had to remind him, which he did afterward.
He barely spoke to me at all.
One thing that struck me as odd even at the time was that he had a brand-new iPhone and kept texting someone while driving. It felt slightly suspicious, but I just wanted to get home, so I didn’t think too much of it.
Then everything changed.
The driver suddenly slammed on the brakes.
Two men jumped into the taxi.
Both had knives.
Immediately, they pressed them toward my stomach and thigh and told me I was being robbed. They said they would kill me if I didn’t empty my pockets.
They started patting me down, looking for cash and bank cards, which is common in what are often called “express kidnappings” or paseo millonario robberies.
They forced me to unlock my phone and started going through my apps.
Fortunately, it was just the burner.
They kept asking where my banking apps were and where I kept my money.
I told them I was a tourist from Brazil.
I tried to keep the situation calm by talking to them like I understood how things worked on the street. I told them I respected the hustle and understood that people did what they had to do to survive.
I wasn’t trying to be philosophical.
I was trying not to get stabbed.
At this point, both men were still pressing knives against me.
I had my hands around their wrists because I was terrified one of them would suddenly decide to stab me.
Meanwhile, the driver was speeding erratically south through the city.
Every so often he’d slow down, turn around, hit me with his phone and tell me they were going to kill me if I didn’t give them everything.
I kept repeating that they already had everything I was carrying.
I kept trying to de-escalate the situation.
“It’s all respect. Nobody needs to get hurt. You have everything I have.”
At one point, one of the men got a phone call.
It was apparently the mother of his child telling him they needed diapers.
He told her he was “working” and that he’d call her back later.
I wish I were exaggerating that detail.
I’m not.
Eventually, after driving around for a while, they told me they weren’t going to kill me.
That was the first moment when I started to believe I might actually survive.
They gave me my apartment keys back and told me they were going to leave me somewhere on the street.
Finally, they pulled over at some random corner and ordered me out.
They told me not to look back.
If I looked back, they said they would kill me.
So I started walking.
For a few seconds, I was still in shock.
Then the adrenaline hit.
I started sprinting.
Eventually, I found another taxi driver who seemed trustworthy. I explained what had happened, and he helped me get back to my place.
I gave him a good tip.
Then I called off work and basically spent the day trying to process what had just happened.
I never filed a police report.
At the time, I had very little confidence that anything meaningful would come from it, and underreporting of crimes like this is common.
I’ve been in plenty of sketchy and violent situations before, but this was one of the closest calls I’ve ever had.
I genuinely believe that if they thought I was hiding money or refusing to cooperate, things could have ended very differently.
What disturbed me most was their demeanor.
There was no nervousness.
No hesitation.
No panic.
They acted like people who had done this many times before.
The tone of their voices, the way they handled the knives, the way the driver coordinated everything — none of it felt improvised.
It felt routine.
Based on their accents, I believed they were Venezuelan. Two sounded like they were from Caracas and one sounded like he was from the coast.
What I Took Away From It
First: Uber.
Uber, Uber, Uber.
I probably would have avoided the entire situation if my SIM card had been working and I’d simply ordered a ride instead of hailing a taxi alone late at night.
I made myself vulnerable by wandering around at night, dressed like I had money, without reliable mobile data and without a safe ride already arranged.
Second: Colombia can be an incredible place, but it is not a destination where you should arrive completely naive about your surroundings.
If you’re coming straight from a quiet American suburb into a major Colombian city, you need to understand that the street awareness expected of you may be very different.
Knowing Spanish helps enormously. So does understanding the neighborhoods you’re visiting, how transportation works, which situations make you stand out, and what kinds of scams and robberies are common.
Third: carrying a burner phone may have saved me a huge amount of money.
If my main phone had been in my pocket with banking apps, credit cards and access to financial accounts, this could have become much worse.
Instead, they got a relatively cheap phone and whatever little I happened to be carrying.
That’s a trade I’ll take.
This was my only truly bad experience during nearly two years of traveling to Colombia.
Eventually, if you spend enough time somewhere, your exposure to risk increases. In my case, I made several bad decisions at once and happened to encounter exactly the wrong taxi.
I’m just grateful it didn’t end worse.
I later came across reporting about an organized gang operating this type of paseo millonario robbery in Bogotá. Authorities said the group had victimized dozens of people.
Read the El Tiempo report here.
– Huge-Tower5384