Young men in Atlanta knocked out, kidnapped and robbed after visiting bars in Buckhead

Eight men said they lost consciousness and were then robbed of thousands of dollars while out at bars in a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood from November 2021 to last month, according to conversations with six of the men and police reports filed by two others.

The men said they believed they were drugged or described feeling abnormally intoxicated shortly before their phones were used to transfer thousands of dollars out of their bank accounts — largely using mobile payment apps such as Venmo, Zelle, Apple Cash, PayPal and CashApp — and their credit cards were used to make fraudulent purchases, according to documentation victims shared with NBC News and police records.

Five of the eight men — one of whom was the subject of an NBC News report in February — also alleged that while they were in and out of consciousness on the nights of their encounters, they were driven around Atlanta in unfamiliar cars by strangers.

The alleged incidents occurred after the men went out to bars in Buckhead, an affluent Atlanta neighborhood known for its vibrant nightlife and young crowd. After NBC News reported about an incident at Five Paces Inn, a bar in the neighborhood, additional alleged victims reached out with similar accounts. NBC News found other alleged victims through social media and public records requests to the Atlanta Police Department focusing on several local bars.

While four men said the alleged crimes occurred at Five Paces Inn, others said incidents took place at three other popular bars in the area: Thirty, Johnny’s Hideaway and The Ivy Buckhead.

Six of the men reported the crimes to the police, and all of their cases remain open, according to a spokesperson for the APD, officer Anthony Grant.

Revelations about the alleged crimes in Atlanta come nearly two years after NBC News began reporting on a spate of crimes with notable similarities in New York City, with some targeting gay bars. Criminals incapacitated and robbed over three dozen victims after gaining access to their phones, prosecutors alleged, resulting in the deaths of at least seven people.

In one of the cases in Atlanta, Chandler Rebel, 24, said he was robbed of about $13,000 after visiting Five Paces Inn with friends in August 2022.

The last thing Rebel remembers at the bar was ordering a round of drinks for his friends. He then recalls briefly coming to in the back seat of an accelerating vehicle while being restrained by an unknown person.

“I just remember everything was black in there, trying to scream, but it was like a hand was over me, forcing more of that substance down my mouth,” Rebel said, explaining that it was something solid, but he’s not sure what.

He said he woke up several hours later while “violently” throwing up blood in a gas station bathroom 3 miles away from the bar. Rebel filed a police report about a week after the alleged incident and his case is still active.

A spokesperson said that the sports bar and music venue takes the safety of its patrons “very seriously” and encouraged victims of crimes at the bar to contact the police.

“Five Paces is aware of reports of criminal activity occurring in and around Buckhead but is not aware of any criminal activities taking place within Five Paces,” the spokesperson, Scott A. Minot, said in an email. “Five Paces has not been contacted by any alleged victims or the police and has no additional information or knowledge about any of these incidents or reports.”

Johnny’s Hideaway also said that the police never contacted the bar to inquire about any of the alleged crimes. The Ivy Buckhead and Thirty Bar did not return NBC News’ requests for comment.

“The Atlanta Police Department is aware of these cases and is investigating each,” Sgt. John Chafee said in a statement. “While we are not at a point of releasing details on each of these investigations, I can tell you these are cases we take seriously and our investigators are committed to finding who is responsible and apprehending them.”

Rebel and the five men who spoke with NBC News described blackouts on the nights of their incidents that they said did not resemble the effects of alcohol. They said they consumed typical amounts of alcohol, but described feeling “funny” or “dizzy” before losing consciousness. Some of the men also described experiencing a sensation similar to paralysis, where they lost control of their speech and movements.

Chris, a 26-year-old Atlanta resident who asked that his last name not be published out of fear of retaliation by the people who harmed him, said he was robbed of roughly $13,500 after visiting Buckhead bar The Ivy Buckhead in November 2021. Chris, as well as other men who say they were robbed, shared screenshots of bank accounts showing fraudulent transactions.

The last thing Chris remembers before fading in and out of consciousness was standing at the bar alone to buy a drink. He suspects something might have been slipped into his drink. As with Rebel, his only other memory consists of being slumped over in the back seat of an unknown moving car that night, unable to control his words or body.

“It’s a feeling I haven’t had like any other — it didn’t feel like a drunk. I don’t know how else to say it,” he said. “It felt like I wasn’t fully there.”

Chris said he tried to report the incident at a police station just outside of Atlanta — closer to his home — in the days afterward, but was told he had to file the report at a police station in the city. He said that when he went to a police precinct in Buckhead, he waited 30 minutes to speak with an officer. But with no updates on how much longer it would be, he gave up and left.

One of the eight men, 25-year-old Jace Curry, recalled being physically threatened.

Curry said he was robbed of about $10,000 after visiting Five Paces Inn last September. Two men he met at the bar that night invited him to leave with them and attend a late-night party, he said.

“About five steps out of the bar, they ended up putting what I felt like was a gun to my back and made me go to this ATM and pull them out money,” Curry said, adding that he later discovered that his phone and wallet were missing.

Curry said he would never have left a bar with two strangers if it were not for how intoxicated he felt. “I’m also a heavyweight, so, I mean, I don’t get drunk that easy and it felt like I got drunk real quick,” he said.

Curry reported the encounter to police the next morning and his case is still active, according to police.

All of the men who spoke with NBC News described being in awe of the sophistication of the crimes. Two of them said that in the mornings after their encounters, they woke up with debit cards and phones that didn’t belong to them. They said it created confusion and delayed their ability to stop fraudulent transactions sooner.

“It felt super organized,” Chris said. “The existence of a decoy phone signals to me that there is planning going on behind the scenes. There is a system in play.”

Chris said the Verizon store connected him with the person whose phone he was in possession of, who turned out to be another man whose phone was stolen after visiting an Atlanta bar on an earlier date.

Of the six men who spoke with NBC News, four of them reported their encounters to police. The four men said they shared a trove of records with officers, including receipts of credit card transactions, bank statements and personal information they obtained of their presumed assailants. That included phone numbers, addresses where packages were shipped and the names associated with third-party payment accounts that received the fraudulent transactions.

They described the police as brushing off what they described as volumes of evidence or information for leads.

“I literally gave the police department every single piece of the puzzle, and they could care less,” said Shawn Brown, who said he believes he was drugged and robbed of about $12,000 after visiting Johnny’s Hideaway in March 2023.

Brown reported the incident to police two days after and his case remains ongoing, according to police.

“We understand the frustrations of some victims, but we are actively investigating and working to identify anyone involved in these crimes,” said Chafee, who added that crimes like this are challenging to investigate and significant work is often required to identify suspects. “We urge anyone who has been the victim of a crime to call police and report it as soon as possible. Reporting crime quickly aids in the investigation as well as in identifying crime trends.”

The owner of Johnny’s Hideaway, Chris D’Auria, said in an email that the venue has no record of Brown’s incident, “but certainly do not like to hear that things of that nature have occurred.” D’Auria added that the bar has a police officer on site on its busiest nights, Wednesday through Saturday, along with hired security staff.

“No one, including management had been told or approached by anyone about any drugging/robbery,” he said.

Chafee said that police have increased patrols in the area, and he offered safety tips, like keeping valuables at home and not leaving drinks unattended.

Rebel said when he initially went to police to report the crime, the officer assigned to take his report accused him of fabricating the encounter and warned him that lying to a police officer is illegal.

“Here I am asking for help to get these monsters who did this to me and have done this to other people, and they’re the victim? That terrified me after that experience,” Rebel said. “These boys in blue are supposed to protect me and these ones wouldn’t even hear me.”

The APD did not respond to questions about Rebel’s alleged interactions with the police.

Although the men have not had their cases solved, the majority of them said they recovered most, if not all, of the funds taken from their bank accounts and third-party payment apps after reporting the fraudulent transactions to their banks. Still, some of them were not able to recover their iCloud accounts from Apple and lost access to years of photos and videos.

NBC News reached out to Apple, which did not comment. The company released a new security mode, Stolen Device Protection, in January that is intended to thwart bad actors from learning or changing users’ passcodes.

While it is unclear exactly how the alleged victims’ phones were accessed, those who spoke with NBC News wondered if thieves surreptitiously watched them enter their passcodes, utilized hacking software or used their unconscious faces to unlock their phones via Face ID technology.

Rebel said that losing all of his photographs from high school and college was devastating but has led him to appreciate life in ways he didn’t before his encounter.

“I lost every picture I ever took, but I still get the opportunity to take pictures. I wasn’t like those unfortunate gentlemen in New York,” he said referring to men who were killed with illicit drugs after visiting New York City bars in 2022. “The only pictures they have now are the ones under their obituaries.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com