I got scoped in Medellin: Losing $50k to Scopolamine (Burundanga) and My Lawyer’s Advice

In Medellin expat parlance, “getting scoped” is the slang term used to describe the entire terrifying experience of being drugged and robbed using Scopolamine. Use of the drug is beginning to expand beyond Colombia with incidents reported in Barcelona, Miami and other tourism hotspots.

Scopolamine, commonly known as Burundanga or “Devil’s Breath”is a substance derived from plants indigenous to South America. While it does have legitimate medical uses, criminals in Latin America have coopted the drug specifically for the purposes of robbery and kidnapping.

It is frequently given to unsuspecting tourists at bars and other nightlife venues in Colombia. It can be administered by spiking a drink, blowing it in one’s face or covertly supplied in some other fashion.

In some cases, victims may be given so much of the substance that they overdose to the point of mortal danger.

Scopolamine makes people agreeable to whatever their handlers propose to them. Victims may willingly unlock their phones, share account passwords or even the keys of their apartment or Airbnb. The drug induces deep amnesia, so the victims typically wake up with zero recollection of how this happened to them or the appearance of the people involved.

While your instincts may tell you to go directly to the police, this is not always an ideal first course of action.

Police in Colombia are notoriously unhelpful in such scenarios, and have a tendency to be dismissive, blame the victim and neglect to pursue the perpetrators. Bars, restaurants and other venues may delete security camera footage to avoid being associated with such nefarious activity.

The police are also not likely to respect your testimony about the circumstances leading up to you getting scoped.

This is problematic if you need an official chronology of events in the form of a police report to share with banks or insurance companies.

When this happened to me, my friends and family went directly to my lawyer Alan for help and he put a plan in action immediately.