By Matt Lavietes -
NBC News
Eight men testified that they blacked out and were then robbed of thousands of dollars while in bars in a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood.
The events took place from November 2021 to last month, according to conversations with six of the victims and police reports filed by two others.
The men said they believed they had been drugged or described feeling intoxicated shortly before their phones were used to transfer thousands of dollars from 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 documents the 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 unconscious on the nights of their encounters, they were driven around Atlanta by people they did not know.
Jace Curry indicated that he lost consciousness before he was robbed during a night out in Atlanta, Georgia. Kendrick Brinson / NBC News
The alleged incidents occurred after the men left bars in Buckhead, an affluent Atlanta neighborhood known for its vibrant nightlife and young crowd.
After NBC News reported on an incident at the Five Paces Inn, other alleged victims contacted the network to recount similar events.
NBC News found other alleged victims through social media and public records requests to the Atlanta Police Department (ADP), focusing on several bars in the area.
While four men indicated that the alleged crimes occurred at the Five Paces Inn, others claimed that they 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 police, and all of their cases remain open, according to Officer Anthony Grant, APD spokesman.
Crimes in gay bars
The revelations about the alleged crimes in Atlanta come nearly two years after NBC News began reporting on a wave of crimes with striking similarities in New York City, some of them focused on gay bars.
Criminals incapacitated and then robbed more than three dozen victims after accessing their phones, according to prosecutors, leading to the deaths of at least seven people.
In one of the Atlanta cases, Chandler Rebel, 24, declared that he had been robbed of about $13,000 after visiting the Five Paces Inn with friends in August 2022.
The last thing Rebel remembers from her stay at the bar is ordering a round of drinks for her friends.
He then stated that he came to briefly
in the back seat of a
speeding vehicle, while being restrained by an unknown person.
“I just remember that everything was black in there, trying to scream, but it was like a hand was on me, shoving more of that substance into my mouth,” Rebel stated, explaining that it was something solid, but he is not sure what.
He said he woke up several hours later while “violently” vomiting blood in the bathroom of a gas station 3 miles from the bar.
Rebel filed a police report a week after the alleged incident and his case remains open.
A spokesperson stated that the sports bar and music venue takes the safety of its customers “very seriously,” and encouraged victims of crimes at the location
to contact authorities.
“Five Paces is aware of reports of criminal activity occurring in and around Buckhead, but is not aware of any criminal activity taking place within the bar,” spokesman Scott A. Minot said in an email.
“Five Paces has not been contacted by any alleged victims or law enforcement and has no additional information or knowledge regarding any of these incidents or reports.”
Five Paces Inn is a popular bar in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, an affluent area known for its nightlife.Kendrick Brinson / NBC News
Johnny's Hideaway also claimed that police never contacted the bar to inquire about any of the alleged crimes.
The Ivy Buckhead and the Thirty Bar did not respond to NBC News' requests for comment.
“The Atlanta Police Department is aware of these cases and is investigating each one,” Sergeant John Chafee said in a statement.
“While we are not at a point to release details about each of these investigations, I can tell you that these
These are cases that we take seriously and our investigators are committed to finding those responsible (for them) and stopping them.”
Theft of thousands of dollars
Rebel and the five men who spoke to NBC News described blackouts on the nights of the incidents that they said were not similar to the effects of alcohol.
They explained that they had consumed normal amounts of alcohol, but that they felt “strange” or “dizzy” before passing out.
Some of the men also claimed that they had experienced a sensation similar to paralysis, in which they lost control of speech and movements.
Chris, a 26-year-old Atlanta resident who asked that his last name not be published for fear of retaliation from people who wronged him, said he was robbed of approximately $13,500 after visiting The Ivy Buckhead bar in Buckhead in November 2021.
Chris, like other men who claimed to have been robbed, shared screenshots of bank accounts showing fraudulent transactions.
The last thing Chris remembers before passing out after passing out is that he was standing at the bar alone to buy a drink.
He suspects they put something in it.
As with Rebel, her only memory of him consists of slumped in the back seat of a moving unknown car that night, unable to control his words or his body.
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“It is a sensation that I have not had like any other: I did not feel drunk.
“I don’t know how else to say it,” she explained.
“I felt like I wasn’t quite there.”
Chris said he tried to report the incident at a police station outside Atlanta — closer to his home — in the days that followed, but was assured he had to report it to one in the city.
The young man claimed that, when he went to a Buckhead police station, he waited 30 minutes to speak with an officer.
But since they didn't tell him how long it would take, he gave up and left.
One of the eight men, Jace Curry, 25, recalled being physically threatened.
Curry claimed he was robbed of about $10,000 after visiting the Five Paces Inn in September.
Two men he met at the bar that night invited him to go with them and attend a late-night party, he said.
“About five steps from the bar they ended up putting what I thought was a gun in my back and forcing me to go to an ATM and take money from them,” said Curry, who added 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 weren't for how intoxicated he felt.
“I'm also a heavyweight, so, I mean, I don't get drunk that easily and I felt like I got drunk very quickly,” he added.
Curry reported the encounter to police the next morning and his case remains active, according to authorities.
All of the men who spoke to NBC News described their astonishment at the sophistication of the crimes.
Two of them indicated that, the morning after their encounters,
they woke up with debit cards and phones that did not belong to them.
In addition, they stated that this created confusion and delayed their ability to stop fraudulent transactions.
“He seemed super organized,” Chris said.
“The existence of a decoy phone tells me that there is planning.
“There is a system at play.”
Complaints against the police
Chris mentioned that Verizon put him in touch with the person who owned the cell phone he had with him, who turned out to be another man who had had his cell phone stolen after visiting a bar in Atlanta on a previous date.
Chandler Rebel stated that the last thing he remembers in a bar before passing out is buying a round of drinks. Frank Thorp V / NBC News
Of the six men who spoke to NBC News, four reported their encounters to police.
The four said they shared with agents a large amount of documents, including credit card transaction receipts, bank statements and personal information they obtained from their alleged attackers.
That included phone numbers, addresses to which packages were sent, and names associated with third-party payment accounts that received the fraudulent transactions.
They stated that the police ended up discarding what they considered to be evidence or simple clues.
“I literally gave the police department every piece of the puzzle, and they didn't care at all,” said Shawn Brown, who said he believes he was drugged and robbed of around $12,000, after visiting the Johnny's Hideaway bar.
Brown reported the incident to police two days later and his case remains ongoing, authorities added.
“We understand the frustrations of some victims, but we are actively investigating and working
to identify anyone involved in these crimes
,” Chafee said, adding that crimes like this are challenging and often require significant work to identify suspects.
“We urge anyone who has been a victim of crime to call the police and report it as soon as possible.
Reporting immediately helps in the investigation, as well as identifying criminal trends.”
Johnny's Hideaway owner Chris D'Auria said in an email that the establishment is unaware of Brown's incident, "but we certainly don't like to hear that things of that nature have happened."
D'Auria added that the bar has a police officer on site on its busiest nights, Wednesday through Saturday, along with private security personnel.
“No one, not even management, has been told anything or contacted about theft or drug use,” he said.
Chafee said police have increased patrols in the area and offered safety tips, such as keeping valuables in their homes and not leaving drinks unattended.
Rebel added that when he went to the police to report the crime, the officer assigned to take his statement accused him of fabricating the encounter and warned him that lying to a police officer was illegal.
“Here I am asking for help to catch these monsters who did this to me and have done it to other people, and they are the victim?
That terrified me,” Rebel said.
“Those in blue are supposed to protect me and they didn't even listen to me.”
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The Atlanta Police Department did not respond to questions about Rebel's alleged interactions with police.
Although these men's cases have not been resolved, most of them claimed to have recovered most, if not all, of the funds stolen from their bank accounts and third-party payment apps after reporting the fraudulent transactions to their banks.
However, some were unable to recover their Apple iCloud accounts and lost access to years of photos and videos.
NBC News contacted Apple, which had no comment.
The company launched a new security mode in January, Stolen Device Protection, which aims to prevent thieves from learning or changing users' passwords.
Although it's unclear how exactly they accessed the alleged victims' phones, those who spoke to NBC News wondered whether the thieves watched them enter their passwords, used hacking software or used their unconscious faces to unlock their phones through the Face ID technology.
Rebel added that losing all of his high school and college photos was devastating, but it has led him to appreciate life in a way he didn't before their meeting.
“I lost all the photos I took, but I still have the opportunity to take them.
“I was not like those unfortunate people from New York,” he said, referring to the men who died with illicit drugs after visiting New York bars in 2022. “The only photos they have now are the ones that appear under their obituaries.”