Several young men recently spoke out about the alleged crimes taking place at multiple bars in one Atlanta community where they said they were the targets of druggings and robberies in the city’s tony Buckhead district.
Atlanta Police sent Atlanta Black Star police records last month revealing numerous larcenies and thefts that took place last year at one of those bars, the Five Paces Inn.
Four police reports Atlanta Black Star obtained provide details on credit card fraud and wire fraud incidents that happened to victims who visited the bar in 2023. Each theft revealed a pattern: each victim’s phone was stolen at the bar and the thieves somehow gained access to their devices and transferred thousands of dollars out of their bank accounts.
Three of the victims were males and one was a female. All of their ages ranged from mid-20s to mid-30s.
The first report reveals that one man went to the bar on March 11, 2023, where his phone went missing. When he got home, he realized someone had stolen it, accessed the device, and transferred $9,350 out of his bank accounts using CashApp, Venmo, and Zelle.
A female victim reported to police that she visited Five Paces Inn on June 17, 2023, where her phone was also stolen and mysteriously accessed. Thieves transferred thousands of dollars out of one of her bank accounts.
Another male victim told police his phone went missing when he visited the bar on Nov. 4, 2023. He went home to shut his phone off through the Find My iPhone app and later learned that someone had transferred $12,300 out of his PayPal account.
The final report Atlant Black Star obtained provides details on an incident from December 3, 2023. A man who went to the bar that night told police someone stole his phone right out of his hand and then ran off. The victim didn’t call 911 that night. Instead, he went to an Apple store the next day to try to get a new phone. There, he learned that the passwords to his iCloud account and some of his apps had been changed. After he recovered access to some of his accounts, he learned funds were transferred from his bank and investment accounts.
The report states that someone moved $2,800 out of his bank account to another account. Additionally, more than $140,000 of his exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were transferred in multiple transactions. He was able to recover most of those funds, but not all of them.
The victim also learned that someone used his phone to contact friends and family for money. None of those family members or friends answered the requests.
NBC News released a report on Monday with the accounts of several other men who said they were robbed after visiting the Five Paces Inn and three nearby bars. These incidents go back to November 2021, according to the report, and all of the accounts bear some similarities to the incident reports we obtained.
Four men who were interviewed by the outlet reported incidents at the Five Paces Inn. Others recalled thefts that happened at Thirty, Johnny’s Hideaway, and The Ivy Buckhead.
Three of the victims said they believed they were drugged after visiting those bars before being robbed. Two said they remembered moments of being in the back seat of a car surrounded by strangers. When they came to, they were a few miles away from the bars and later learned their phones were used to transfer more than $10,000 out of each of their bank accounts.
One man said he went to Five Paces Inn last September, where two men he met invited him to a party only to rob him once they exited the bar. He said one of the men put “what felt like a gun” to his back, and they walked him to an ATM where he withdrew $10,000. His phone and wallet were also stolen during the ordeal.
Two other victims said they visited the Buckhead bars and woke up the next morning to find phones and wallets that weren’t theirs.
In cases where the victims’ phones were stolen, it’s unclear how the thieves accessed the devices. Some of the victims believed the culprits watched them enter their passcodes, used hacking software, or, in the drugging cases, unlocked their phones with their unconscious faces.
A spokesperson for Five Paces Inn sent a statement to NBC News saying that bar management was “not aware” of any crimes taking place at their bar.
“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,” spokesperson Scott A. Minot told NBC News. “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 police never contacted them about the crimes.
