A group of minors in Finland are suspected of using an adult dating website to lure a man into meeting them and then proceeding to rob the victim and threaten him while armed with a machete.
Four boys and a girl are suspected of making a profile on a Finnish-language adult dating website and luring the victim a middle-aged man, with the girl believed to be the member of the group who interacted with the victim using the website. Once the victim had been lured out, the male members of the group are said to have threatened the man with a machete and robbed him.
So far just one of the boys has been arrested by police, while the remaining members of the group have been placed under suspicion of aggravated robbery, broadcaster Yle reports.
France: Teens Use Grindr App to Lure Gay Men to Be Assaulted, Robbed https://t.co/nYaD8v8Qdy
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 14, 2019
According to investigators, at least three members of the group have been involved in similar behaviour in the past in the town of Järvenpää and had created a fake email and fake dating website profile to contact victims, who they would later attempt to rob. Police say similar robberies have also been seen in Helsinki and elsewhere in Finland and note that there may be further victims of the youth gang.
Similar incidents of criminals using dating apps to lure victims have been reported across Europe in recent years, such as in France in 2019 when two 17-year-old young men were arrested in Choisy-le-Roi after they used the gay dating app Grindr to violently attack and rob homosexual men. Police later connected the pair to previous robberies and both were already well-known to police.
Even more serious crimes, including murder, have been linked to criminals using dating apps, such as in Spain earlier this year when police in Bilbao said a man was using Grindr to lure homosexual men and had murdered at least four men.
The suspect, a 25-year-old migrant, later turned himself in but denied the alleged murders.
Spanish Police Hunt For Alleged Gay Dating App Serial Killerhttps://t.co/ctfvzyJmNR
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 6, 2022
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