“Everything was a blur”: Israeli man robbed in horrific manner abroad

Yehuda, a 36-year-old from Tel Aviv, a teacher by profession, went on a long trip to Mexico alone about a month ago. “It’s something I do every time I have a long vacation. I fly to a different destination for a few weeks and use the free time to have fun,” he tells mako.

Last week, which was the last week of his trip, Yehuda arrived in Mexico City. One evening, he spoke to a local man on the dating app Grindr. “He contacted me on the app and seemed nice. We started talking and the conversation flowed very well. He said he had come to Mexico City to spend time with his family, and a few hours later we arranged to meet at the bar below the hotel where I was staying.”

When he met the Mexican man he met on the app, Yehuda says everything seemed “normal.” “He had fluent English, and there was no detail or sign that made me suspicious of him, quite the opposite.” According to him, after about two hours, when he said he was starting to get tired, the Mexican offered him a taste of a beer he didn’t know. “He said it was a special fruity beer and that I had to taste it. I didn’t refuse, and they brought us two bottles to the table. In retrospect, I understand that he took advantage of the moment when I was talking to people sitting next to us and put a date-rape drug in my beer bottle. In a short time, I started to feel really bad, like a strange Stella. I told him I wanted to go up to my room and that we would talk later.”

A serious incident in Mexico | Photo: Courtesy of the photographer,

Yehuda, who was already in a daze at this point, says that he began to feel extreme weakness in his legs and had difficulty walking. “I couldn’t stand. He told me he would walk me to the room, and I refused, but I tried again and again to walk and I just couldn’t. From here on, I don’t remember what happened anymore. I don’t even remember the way to the room. Everything was a blur, and the feeling is that my memory of those moments was simply erased.”

Six hours later, he woke up in his hotel bed. “I got up, covered as if I were a corpse, and I immediately realized that something bad had happened. I was still blurry and out of focus, but I started looking for my personal belongings. I immediately went to the bag I had hidden behind the curtain, which contained my credit cards and cash. I saw that the bag was open, and everything had been taken from it, even my driver’s license. In addition, two luxury watches I had in my possession, as well as my iPhone, had been stolen. I got dressed and ran down the main street in a panic, where I encountered a group of police officers. They did not speak English and called for an interpreter who arrived within a few minutes along with someone who appeared to be their commander. One of the officers went up to the room with me, and the first thing he did was look under the bed, as if he knew this scenario very well. There were documents from my domestic flights and a few other personal belongings. He immediately told me that I had fallen victim to an organized gang that operates in this manner, and that there was a chance that more than one person was in the room while I was drugged and unconscious.”

A few hours later, the police took Yehuda to a special police station that handles tourists, where he filed a complaint and recounted the sequence of events to investigators. “When I finished giving my testimony, they took me to the Israeli embassy. There I just burst into tears and couldn’t believe that this was what happened to me. The consulate and the entire Israeli staff were very helpful to me, and they also contacted my family in Israel, who transferred me money and other things that I needed.”

“I already have thousands of shekels in charges on the credit cards that were stolen from me,” Yehuda says. “They even applied for a loan through the app and used Face ID. Now I’m dealing with all the bureaucracy with the credit card company and the bank. I also attached all the documentation and details of the investigation that is underway in Mexico.”

“I’m pessimistic about the chances that they will find that person and whoever helped him, but it’s important for me to warn others so that they don’t fall like I did,” he adds. “As a teacher, I always explain to my students that it is forbidden to drink from a stranger’s drink. In retrospect, I don’t know how I didn’t think to swap the beer bottles between us at that moment. It’s also important to understand that not only women can fall victim to such cases, but also men. I hope people learn from my case.”