The Russia Thread
01-15-2019, 09:28 PM
I posted the below event in the Colombia thread, there has been cases of people getting drugged, robbed and even killed there. I got robbed in Russia, this is what happened to me.
HOW I GOT DRUGGED AND ROBBED
I’m going to explain an incident in which I got drugged and robbed, I don’t mean to instill fear with this, I just want others to know what happened to me and to learn from what I went through, I hope it helps others and I’d be more than happy if this account helps people and it avoids further incidents.
I’m going to try to be as accurate as possible but there are things that I just can’t remember, it’s been more than three years now and there’re parts of that night that I just never really knew what happened. One thing I can say for sure: this event is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me.
It was November 2015 and I had just moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia, from another Russian city in which I had lived for more than two years. I was fairly new in Saint Petersburg (Piter) when this happened but not in Russia. If I remember correctly it was my second or third week in Piter.
It was a Saturday night and me and my roommate had a very large dinner at home, he cooked lots of pasta and I ate a lot (he’s a very good cook), after eating another friend came home and we started pre-drinking before heading out. We had a bottle of whisky between the three of us. After that we took a taxi and went to a bar, I can’t remember the name of the bar but I can ask my friend who might remember.
Once I got into the bar everything seemed fine, we ordered a few drinks at the bar and we were just having fun. I then realized that next to me there was a cute girl with red hair and we started talking, note that at his stage I was pretty tipsy but not hammered. We went outside to have a smoke and we were joined by a female friend of hers. Red hair girl said she was from the city in Russia I had lived more than 2 years before moving to Piter (coincidence?), at this point my memory starts to fade and I remember less. I tried to kiss her but she said it was too early for that and she’d come to my place later in the night.
Next thing I remember we were the three of us in a taxi and then we were in another bar, I think in Dumskaya street with those of you familiar with Piter.
At this point I’d say I was aware I was feeling weird but nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. I bought a few rounds of shots using my debit card (huge mistake) and right after that I remember very little. I had an image in my mind of me being at an ATM and then being in a taxi with the two chicks. I was at the back of the taxi and this I remember very well, I was woken up by one of the girls and she then said this to me: “Get out of the taxi” using my own name, to which I complied.
I got out of the taxi and then I was feeling really weird, I can’t compare how I felt then with anything else. I’ve taken recreational drugs before but I wasn’t feeling high when I got out of that taxi. I was more like feeling lost, it took me a while to realize I was on my own street and I was in the middle of the road at night. There was no one around me. Only then I had a feeling that something was odd, I kind of felt fear and panic at the same time. I looked at my wrist and my watch wasn’t there (it was an automatic Tag Heuer), I reached to my right pants pocket to get my phone and it wasn’t there (standard Samsung smart phone), I opened my wallet and my bank card wasn’t there, neither I had any cash. Then it hit me and it hit me really hard: I had just been robbed.
I ran to my apartment and woke up my roommate, I called the bank to cancel my card and by the taxi I got an English operator on the line all she could do was tell my all my money was gone, I had approximately 100,000 Rubles in my account, which equaled to around 1,200 USD. All gone.
The day after, still feeling not well, I went to a police station and filed a report, I needed to get an official translator for that, which wasn’t cheap. The officer that was there mentioned that there had been many similar incidents in the city. The police said they’d investigate but I didn’t really have much hope.
I went to my own bank, still with the official translator, and explained what happened. The translator put everything in writing and I signed some paperwork. They informed me of and showed me a bank statement where I saw that not only there had been ATM withdrawals but also purchases in bars. They account had been overdrawn and my balance was -2,000 Rubles. The bank teller said whoever used my card in those bars forced through the last transactions knowing there was no balance left. That was all the money I had in Russia back then, all was taken. Thank fuck I had some money in another bank account in my own home country.
I few days after I went back to my bank and they said they were not going to refund me because the correct PIN number had been used for all ATM withdrawals, therefore I was liable. I said I had been drugged and scammed and I had a police report to prove it. It didn’t make any difference. I told them to find the CCTC tapes for the ATM locations where my card was used and they said they needed a police order to do that, which I knew was bullshit.
I didn’t pursue it with the police, months after they called me on the phone and asked me to come to the police station because they had some information. I never did because I was about to leave Russia for good and I doubted they were going to give me anything back.
Aftermath:
-Tag Heuer watch: Valued at around 1,100 Euros. It was a present.
- Samsung cell phone: Valued at around 150 Euros
- Money in bank account all gone: Around 1,100 Euros.
No physical damage was done to me and I never had or felt any consequences.
This is what happened to me and how I remember it. To this day I still don’t know if I entered my own PIN number for those ATM withdrawals, if I gave the PIN number to the girls or what the hell happened. I didn’t have it written it down somewhere, that’s for sure, and it wasn’t particularly easy to guess, ie no date of birth etc.
I never went back to that bar/those bars. I warned all my friends in the city, though.
Have I been more vigilant and cautious when going out at night from then on? Yes, but I guess there’s been occasions when I left my drink unattended.
If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask.
Stay safe and all the best,
Polero.