AN American tourist has been shot to death in Colombia during an apparent robbery attempt after leaving his hotel in a wealthy enclave of Medellin.

Police say a 65-year-old New Yorker identified as John Mariani was assaulted on Friday night when the taxi he was traveling was intercepted by gunmen in a chase vehicle and motorcycle.

They said Mariani had arrived in Medellin from Costa Rica, but gave no other information on him.

“On Friday night, when a foreign national got out of the taxi he was travelling in, he was approached by a suspect who tried to rob his belongings. When the man resisted, sadly, he was killed,” Medellin police colonel John Rodriguez told reporters.

Mariani was rushed to hospital “but unfortunately was dead on arrival,” Rodriguez said.

Police are offering a $16,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.

The US Embassy had no immediate comment.

El Poblado neighborhood where the shooting happened is one of the Medellin’s wealthiest and safest enclaves. It is a leafy neighborhood that is home to the city’s vibrant dining scene and dozens of high-rise apartment buildings and hotels.

Medellin, the country’s second biggest city, is a far cry from the 1980s when it was the headquarters for Pablo Escobar’s feared Medellin cocaine cartel, and it has been experiencing a boom in tourism. The New York Times featured it at No. 11 on its list of 52 places to go in 2015.

Although the city remains a major center of crime, violence has dropped since Escobar’s heyday, when more than a dozen people were slain daily on average. The city had a homicide rate last year of 26.1 per 100,000 residents, about five times the US average but well below major American cities like Detroit and Baltimore.

Seven Colombians were extradited to the US last year to face charges in the stabbing death of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, James “Terry” Watson, who was killed during a botched “express kidnapping” by a ring that targeted unsuspecting passengers hailing taxi cabs in Bogota.