On May 9, while Portland-born Jacob Irwin-Cline was on a two-day stopover in the London capital, he hailed an Uber to leave a nightclub at around 1:30am.
A driver approached him and called his name. Not surprisingly, the name appears on the Uber application.
Irwin-Cline is seen getting into a dark sedan on the nightclub's CCTV footage. The victim doesn't realize at the time that this is not the Toyota Prius displayed on his Uber app.
"The guy seemed super cool, super nice," says Irwin-Cline.
The supposed driver then offered him a cigarette ... but the investigation would determine that it contained scopolamine, a sedative that causes blackouts while keeping victims conscious and suggestible.
"I said I'd quit smoking, but he said, 'Oh, come on.' I said, 'Sure, to bond over a cigarette'"
While under the influence of alcohol and sedative, Irwin-Cline unwittingly provided his phone's passcode and access to his Revolut account, before being abandoned in an unfamiliar part of London.
Irwin-Cline estimates his total losses at $123,000 in crypto, including $72,000 in XRP, around $50,000 in Bitcoin.
Police are taking a very serious view of the facts, against a backdrop of an upsurge in physical attacks targeting crypto holders across Europe.
