THE WORLD’S
DESPITE THE BEST EFFORTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT, SOUTH AMERICA IS STILL A HOTSPOT OF VIOLENT ABDUCTION
When Tou Ger Xiong touched down in Colombia in late November 2023, flying in from his adopted hometown of Minneapolis in the US, he had no reason to be apprehensive about his visit. The 50-year-old comedian and activist was afrequent visitor to the city of Medellín and planned to spend Christmas in the apartment he had rented there. Twelve days after his arrival, he was brutally stabbed to death, suffering more than adozen wounds before his body was callously dumped into aravine. With the police already alerted that Tou was missing, his body was swiftly identified from the clothes he was wearing.
Tou had been kidnapped in Medellín after agreeing to meet with alocal woman he’d chatted to on social media. Pictures of her recovered from his phone revealed the two had already met in person on anumber of his previous trips to South America, but what he believed to be friendship, or perhaps apotential romance, was actually apatient –and deadly –honey trap. When he arrived for their rendezvous, he was assaulted and abducted by a gang of men and never seen alive again.
Family and friends realised he was in serious trouble when they began to receive calls from the kidnappers demanding aransom of more than $20,000. Tou had phoned his brother to ask for money and although his sibling agreed to help, the bank transfer was delayed because he had to get on aplane when the call came in. Tou did not tell him he had been taken against his will, and his brother was not initially suspicious about his request because it was not the first time he had sent money to him in Colombia. The tragic hold-up in wiring the money cost Tou his life. His abductors threw him off acliff from aheight of 60ft, causing severe trauma to his body, then quietly disappeared. Police arrested the woman after discovering pictures of her on his mobile, and aman who shared Tou’s apartment confirming he recognised her, but it was scant consolation for Tou’s family.
His brother said of the fateful phone call, “He was like, ‘Do you have acouple of thousand?’ And I’m like, ‘No problem, when you do you want it? ‘And he said, ‘I want it now, because I’m in abit of asituation here.’ He had been in contact with this woman before, and she was one of the new friends he [had] made on his trips down there. That day was not the first time they met. It’s hard to think about, but maybe he let his guard down because he thought he knew her. It’s kind of funny how Idon’t even feel like he’s really gone yet. Ifeel like at any moment now he could be k
