Carolina Meija Montoya was arrested in Medellin, Colombia, as she was accused by police of using a memory-erasing drug known as Devil’s Breath on tourists before robbing them
Colombia: Police arrest woman on suspicion of multiple thefts
A woman accused of robbing tourists with a memory-erasing drug known as Devil’s Breath has been arrested by police.
Carolina Meija Montoya was paraded in handcuffs in a tight-fitting leather dress after her capture. She had been dubbed the Queen of Scopolamine by cops in Medellin, Colombia – named after the drug she incapacitated her alleged victims with.
Most of the eight crimes she has been accused of involved foreign tourists. Investigators say she targeted male holidaymakers in a park in the upmarket neighbourhood of Medellin famed for its sex tourism called El Poblado. She then invited them to drinks she spiked in hotels and apartments before stealing their belongings while they were unconscious.
The drug she allegedly used is mainly produced in Colombia and comes from the seeds of the borrachero tree. Devil’s breath, also known as burundanga, comes as a fine white powder which is blown into the victim’s face or used to spike food or drinks and renders people helpless within minutes.
It then disappears from the bloodstream in around four hours, meaning it often becomes untraceable before a victim has had time to be tested. In high doses it can be lethal. Mejia Montoya is suspected of making up to £30,000 from each of her alleged crimes. She has been described locally as one of the leaders of crime gang La Marina, which specialised in drink spiking thefts.
Three alleged accomplices were arrested during police raids in May but she managed to escape, abandoning a child who was subsequently taken into care. A spokesman for Valle de Aburra Metropolitan Police, which covers Medellin, confirmed overnight on X alongside a mugshot of the pretty brunette: “A woman known as the Queen of Scopolamine has been arrested in Medellin. This 27-year-old woman is allegedly involved in at least eight cases of theft using chemical substances.”
It also released footage of officers taking her into custody in her eye-catching leather dress in handcuffs and a woman thought to be Mejia Montoya entering a residential property with a suspected accomplice and one of their alleged foreign victims.
Medellin made headlines earlier this year over the high number of tourist deaths in the city, with one every six days in the first part of 2024. Yiri Milena Amado, former director of the Attorney General’s Office in Valle del Aburra, gave an interview to respected Colombian news website Semana in March, saying ‘deadly cocktails’ represented a ‘common thread’ in the spate of tourists deaths.