Dating app used for sadistic purposes
Linden police warn the community against a new modus operandi of committing crimes through the use of a dating app.
There is a new dating app called ‘Grinder’ that criminals have begun using to defraud people. Criminals will lure people to meet at a particular place ‘for interest sake’, where victims will later realise that the person they have met up with is a criminal.
Some incidents have seen victims swindled of their cash and raped.
According to a statement from Linden Police Station’s communication officer, Sergeant Takalani Sibiya, the station received a case where a victim had allegedly been asked to meet up at 81 Queens Avenue in Windsor West, for a blind date. The victim drove to the stipulated address and arrived at Casablanca Flats. “He met with his date who told him to sit on the couch and they began chatting,” said Sibiya.
The victim alleged that another black male joined them and together they pushed the victim against the couch, tied his legs, hands, and thighs together with shoelaces and proceeded to beat him. The criminals told the victim to cooperate or they would shoot him. They searched the victim and took his Apple watch, R5 000 cash, car keys and his Apple iPhone 13.
“A third male joined them and they told him that his friend was upstairs. Suddenly, he saw a white male leaving with a black male, while three other men left with the victim’s vehicle.”
The criminals came back and told the victim and the white male, who is alleged to have also been a victim of this crime, that after a few minutes they could take their car keys and leave. The white male helped untie the victim and in the end, grabbed their car keys and walked to their vehicles and drove away in separate directions.
Linden police are appealing to the community to approach new online dating acquaintances with caution by verifying profile pictures and not oversharing information about themselves. “Once scammers feel they’ve gained your trust, they will start to ask for money.”
Should you have any doubts about the person you are talking to, discontinue the conversation. Avoid meeting up in private places, always meet in a public setting.
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